UMUR "Angst" is the 3rd full-length studio album by German black metal act Todtgelichter. The album was released in December 2010 by Aural Music/Code666.

The music on "Angst" is by no means "regular" harsh black metal, nor is it black metal of the symphonic kind. Instead Todtgelichter plays a very eclectic form of black metal with progressive ideas, raw male vocals, clean female vocals and an at times goth tinged atmosphere. The album is as mentioned very eclectic and you can easily go from a harsh section black metal section to a melodic progressive section to a female fronted section over the course of one song. This might sound messy to some, but Todtgelichter are succesful in making the transitions between styles work seamlessly. In other words the styles are brought together in a natural way.

The production is clean and powerful and should speak to those who don´t want their black metal too filthy.

"Angst" is an album that has taken a while to sink in for me, but it´s a grower for sure. it´s not always music as eclectic as this works for me, but I think Todtgelichter are succesful at what they do. "Angst" is an intriguing album deserving a 3.5 - 4 star rating.

Vehemency It’s not a rare thing to see black metal bands evolving into more avantgarde and progressive directions and while some fail miserably at it, some, like Todtgelichter here on their third album ”Angst”, succeed in creating an interesting album of emotional yet intense black metal with progressive tendencies, or perhaps prog with black metal tendencies - either way, ”Angst” proves that the well of this kind of genre fusions has certainly not run dry yet in 2010.

It doesn’t take many seconds into the first track to realize that there’s a lot of work put into making this album: multiple layers bring interesting melodies and there’s a lot of diversity going on, from the sudden yet carefully placed female vocals after male screams to the most aggressive bursts of energy. ”Oblivion” is at times close to the grandiose landscapes of Disillusion’s ”Back to Times of Splendor”, while the shorter ”Phobos & Deimos” attacks with furious blasts, and ”Allmählich” slowly closes the 55-minute album with post-rock esque organs and clean guitar sound. Sounds like pretentious fluctuation between genres? Not really, the album flows naturally and nothing seems out of place, and there’s not much instrumental wankery to be found here; just pure emotions in a breathing, atmospheric production. Being a long album with diverse textures, it surely takes multiple listens to find all the nuances that are in the depths of this record.

To cut this praise for a while and to focus on some downsides: ”Angst” isn’t still a perfect record after all, even if quite impressive. Tracks ”Subway” and ”Moloch” drag on maybe a bit too long and have somewhat unnecessarily technical riffage to my taste, albeit the former does have a sweet chorus and the latter builds up nicely towards the end. Otherwise I’m not sure do I find any crucial flaws here. Any certain highlight tracks are hard to mention because at worst the album is still decent, but the cleanly sung passages towards the end of ”Café of Lost Dreams” always stand out as the most innovative ideas of the album when I spin this record. ”Angst” has convinced me pretty well and most certainly deserves a favorable score.