UMUR Todessehnsucht is the 2nd full-length studio album by German death metal act Atrocity. The band left Nuclear Blast Records after the release of their debut album Hallucinations (1990), so Todessehnsucht was released through Roadrunner Records. The lineup from the debut album is intact.The album was released in America as Longing for Death against the band´s will.

The music on Todessehnsucht is rather ambitious technical death metal. The band have sacrificed some of the fierce power and relentless aggression of the debut for a more sophisticated technical approach. Songs like Godless Years, Defiance and Sky Turned Red are pretty impressive seen from a technical point of view. Songs like Necropolis and the Death cover track Archangel, which is a bonus track on some versions of the album, are more simple and direct in nature though. The musicianship is excellent on the album. Atrocity were without a doubt one of the most tight and well playing death metal acts in the early nineties ( and I can testify that it was also the case on stage, as I saw them playing on the tour for Todessehnsucht). Alexander Krull has changed his vocal style on Todessehnsucht compared to his style on Hallucinations. Where his style on the latter was pretty high pitched and aggressive his style on Todessehnsucht has changed to a deeper growling style.

The production is very different from the debut too. Todessehnsucht is a self-produced affair. I can´t claim to be very excited about the sound but it´s professional and most others will probably not find anything to complain about.

Todessehnsucht is a good and definitely above average release by Atrocity. I do miss the fierce intensity of the debut and I will probably always prefer Hallucinations over Todessehnsucht, but a 3.5 star rating is still well deserved.

UMUR Hallucinations is the debut album by German death metal act Atrocity. The album was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida and produced by Scott Burns. Hallucinations is one of the earliest examples of German death metal and widely considered a classic European death metal album from the early nineties.

The music on Hallucinations is one part blasting deathgrind and one part technical death metal. I remember the album was described as technical death metal back then. The vocals by Alex Krull is not your ususal guttural death growl but more a higher pitched aggressive growling style. The musicianship is excellent and the band handle the many abrupt tempo and time signature changes in great style. Hallucinations is a concept album. The story is about a girl who is sexually abused by her father starting at the age of 4 ( unpleasantly described in the first song Deep in Your Subconscius, and I mean really unpleasant stuff), her emotional problems because of the incest, her subjection to heroin and the devastating social and emotional problems caused by her addiction. The last song on the album Last Temptation describes her untimely but inevitable death of a heroin overdose. As such a classic social realistic drama theme which have been used before ( I´m instantly reminded of the Christiane F. movie), but the lyrics are really well written here and really provide an extra dimension to the music. Some of the best lyrics ever on a death metal release if you ask me. Make sure you have the lyrics at hand when you listen to the album. The 8 tracks are all high quality compositions and listening to songs like Deep in Your Subconscius and the title track is an extremely rewarding experience IMO. The more direct and brutal Fatal Step is also among my favorites. Powerful song that one.

The production is not very good though. It´s brutal and serves its purpose but it´s simply too messy and even noisy at times which takes away focus from some of the really well played technical riffs. To top it off the snare drum sound is an abomination. The sound of that snare drum really annoys me. I really enjoy some of Scott Burns productions, but they are hit and miss and for every good one that he made there´s a bad one too. Unfortunately Hallucinations falls under the latter catagory. When that is said I´m still able to enjoy the album without focusing on the bad production all the time, so it´s not completely destroying my listening pleasure after all.

Hallucinations is an excellent album by Atrocity and I find it highly recommendable despite some obvious production flaws. This one is a classic. Death metal fans who are only familiar with the later goth/ industrial metal releases by Atrocity should take a listen to this one. I´m sure many will be positively surprised.