adg211288 Apnoe (2013) is the fourth full-length album to be released by German black metal act Todtgelichter. Since the release of their last album Angst (2010) the band has had some line-up changes revolving around the departure of bassist/vocalist Nils. Two new musicians have been brought in to replace him, Christoph on bass and Tobias on vocals. The rest of the group remains unchanged, bringing Todtgelichter up to a six strong line-up. Additionally there are two guest vocalists performing on Apnoe, Allen B. Konstanz (The Vision Bleak) and Daniel Brennare (Lake of Tears).

I haven’t experienced the music of Todtgelichter before Apnoe but I gather after doing a bit of background research for this review that Apnoe is a bit of a change of pace for the band, who have always been described as a black metal act, albeit an increasingly forward thinking, progressively inclined one. Apnoe sees the band’s progressive side becoming the lead element in their sound, so much that I would not even call Apnoe a progressive black metal album but rather a blackened progressive metal album. There are even a few parts that the album moves into avant-garde territory, and there’s actually a good portion of the music here that is not metal at all, but rather quiet, atmospheric music, some of which even has a bit of a jazzy edge to it. Songs like Until It All Begins are completely non metal, and that doesn’t matter in the slightest, because Todtgelichter excels at such songs.

What black metal elements that remain in Todtgelichter are also quite atmospheric in nature, since atmospheric is perhaps the best term to describe what Todtgelichter have put together here. The band isn’t going to be wowing their listeners with the overt technicality of traditionally styled progressive metal acts that come out of the Dream Theater school of the genre, but they do provide an immersive sound that refuses to conform to any particular standard. Prog, metal, rock, avant-garde, jazz, three styles of vocal delivery, lyrics mostly in English but also some of their native German, Todtgelichter certainly chop and change between some ideas during Apnoe’s ten tracks!

The music is impressive, with some songs coming across as being better than others. Embers and Lights of Highways are early highlights, while the German sung Tiefer Fall (featuring Allen B. Konstanz) has an addictive quality to it. The vocals are a real treat as well, being a mix between female vocals, cleanly sung male vocals, and black metal growling. Despite the black metal background of the band the vocals are mostly performed cleanly and in terms of overall presence on the album it’s female vocalist Marta who seems to have taken the dominant role within Todtgelichter now. What growls are here seem used to provide an extreme edge, never to really lead a song.

An album like this is never going to be easy to understand or get into. It’s taken me several listens just attempting to identify everything that Todtgelichter put into it. This is truly a well crafted album, and one that most definitely delivers the goods. An exceptional grade rating is deserved.

87/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/todtgelichter-apnoe-t2918.html)

Kev Rowland Todtgelichter started life as a Black Metal band releasing firstly a demo in 2003, then two albums in a similar vein (‘Was Bleibt...’ in 2005 and ‘Schemen’ in 2007) before they decided to spread their wings with their third album ‘Angst’ which came out in 2007. This saw references to their BM roots, but in many ways was a much more progressive album which stretched the boundaries in so many ways. Since then they have been concentrating on gigging and working on new material, but since the last album there has also been a line-up change with founder member Nils (vocals/bass) parting company. The band haven’t looked to replace him with another bassist/singer but have instead brought in specialist vocalist Topbias and bassist Christoph Wonerow (Nimbufera, ex-Satanium). The rest of the line-up is Marta (organ, vocals), Tentakel Parkinson (drums, keyboards) and Frederic (guitars, vocals).

While still rooted in Metal, the focus nowadays lies on their distinctive guitar melodies, the vocal duets between female lead Marta and male lead Tobias, more mature songwriting and a top-notch production by Eike Freese. What strikes the listener when coming across the album for the first time is that it is comes across almost as a compilation. What I mean by that is that the band seem to be happy in virtually any musical style so can move from pop through to extreme metal with ease, but while some songs contain elements of multiple genres others sit firmly within one, which in many ways makes the album quite hard to listen to. That it is an impressive piece of work is never in doubt, it is much more about the mindshift that is required to go from black metal to influences such as bands like Muse or Rammstein while recognising that it is all the same band. Definitely worthy of investigation. www.auralmusic.com

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.