REVIEW: KANONENFIEBER – DIE URKATASTROPHE
“OK, now this grinder of yours… Is it a real grinder or is it just some kinda metaphor?”
I was pretty shocked to realize that it’s already been 3 1/2 years since Menschenmühle released. I feel like I still consistently hear people talking about the debut record and the praise it received upon release. Maybe that gap hasn’t felt so long because of the number of EPs that Noise — Kanonenfieber’s sole member— has put out under the project’s name in the years since its release. Yankee Division, Der Füsilier, and U-Bootsmann have not just kept fans satiated, but have built up quite a lot of excitement for the release of Die Urkatastrophe.
Undoubtedly one of the things that makes Kanonenfieber what it is is Noise’s vocal performance. The lead throughout the album is constantly passed between the vocals and the guitars, creating the melodic approach to black metal that Kanonenfieber is so well-known for. Combine these catchy melodies with Noise’s dynamic lyricism and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an album that I’m sure will be fun to sing along to live (“Menschenmühle” and “Der Maulwurf” especially come to mind).
On the subject of lyrics, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you translate them and read them yourself. To quote the promo material for this record:
Die Urkatastrophe is based on factual reports, letters and original documents from the surviving and deceased soldiers from the First World War. Its intent is not to glorify, because there is no glory in war. Everyone loses—their lives, their souls, their humanity. War is often depicted in an abstract way, through numbers and statistics. Kanonenfieber aim to tell the stories of the nameless and the faceless in order to allow for a small glimpse of their personal horrors, and thereby the larger scale horror for mankind as a whole.
The lyrics, in combination with the various samples, make for a pretty atmospheric album that greatly succeeds in conveying the exact horrors that Noise sets out to depict.
While the atmospheric elements of the record are embedded well into the mix, I don’t love the production on this record. Kanonenfieber feels as massive on this record as it always has, but the production feels too clean, too sterile. There are bursts of intensity and of volume, but it feels like it consistently lacks the punch and the grittiness that is so typical of blackened death metal. There are also a non-zero number of tracks off this record that just feel like “more of the same.” They feel forgettable and don’t really have any fluctuation in dynamics or in the overall energy of the song. Even after as much time as I’ve spent with this record, there are 4 or 5 tracks where I struggle to remember a single riff or passage without listening to it again.
Is Die Urkatastrophe a bad album? Certainly not! There are plenty of tracks on this record that helped win me over. “Menschenmühle,” “Der Maulwurf,” and “Waffenbrüder” feel like the titans of the release, and “Ausblutungsschlacht”—the second to last track on the album—hits just as hard as you’d want it to. Coupled with the transition into the melancholy acoustic closer “Als die Waffen kamen,” it feels like a great bookend to the album.
Kanonenfieber is doing what Kanonenfieber has always done, and for the most part, it’s working pretty well. While there’s not much about this record that feels particularly new, it does feel familiar. Fans of previous releases will be sure to enjoy this one just as much, if not more, than Kanonenfieber’s debut record.
3.5/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Die Urkatastrophe is out now on Noisebringer Records.
