THALLIUM — Armanenschaft (review)

THALLIUM — Armanenschaft album cover Album · 2008 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Vehemency
I’m pretty confident that Thallium’s second full-length Armanenschaft is a love-or-hate case, being a really sloppily executed black metal album in the spirit of early Graveland and Veles, and I mean very sloppy. How come, then, that I may rate an album of this kind so highly? It’s the charm and magic of unpredictable music. Armanenschaft is, despite the somewhat clear studio production, the exact opposite of generic modern metal where all stones have been turned and the listeners accustomed to precise, almost digitalized playing.

To elaborate the actual music further, Thallium focuses here on atmospheric, wistful and largely melodic (thanks to the loud synths) black metal where mid-tempo drums, no matter how randomly actually played, hold the fuzzy rhythm guitars together, the synths being the main source of melody. The importance of the synths comes clear right on the first metal track ”Return from Near Death”, only to increase on ”Our Dreams Belongs to the Stars” where they dominate even more.

The moderately slow and misty music ends for a while on ”Eagle’s Eye” which is a furious, blast beat filled five minutes, nodding more to Evil’s, Warwolf’s main band’s, direction. ”II” and the bookends provide synth and piano driven material solely, taking a prominent ten minutes of the album’s total length, hence being an important part of the album as well.

Armanenschaft isn’t the most original black metal recording and clearly tries not to be, and sometimes the sloppiness might be more for the album’s bad than good, but there’s something in the natural sound of the album that keeps me getting back to the record every once in a while. Those with a primitive yet melodic taste for black metal are recommended to look into this worthwile effort that hopefully receives continuation in the future.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The God Particle US Power Metal
ATTACKER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Mortality Technical Death Metal
REPLICANT
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Soma Collective Metalcore
GRAYWEATHER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Labyrinth Metalcore
SILVER FANG
Buy this album from MMA partners
Reimmerse Metalcore
UNTIL THE UNKNOWN
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Silver Fang - Labyrinth (Official Music Video)
SILVER FANG
Bosh66· 17 hours ago
Silver Fang - Labyrinth (Lyric Video)
SILVER FANG
Bosh66· 17 hours ago
Silver Fang - Labyrinth (Visualiser)
SILVER FANG
Bosh66· 17 hours ago
Silver Fang - Wish I Never (Lyric Video)
SILVER FANG
Bosh66· 17 hours ago
Silver Fang - Wish I Never (Visualiser)
SILVER FANG
Bosh66· 17 hours ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed