ASENBLUT - Berserker
October 11, 2016, 7 years ago
(AFM)
Third album in for these blackened German thrashers, and right off the bat the hour-long run time has me horrified at the bad decisions bands insist on making; will Asenblut keep me interested, excited, energized, for that long? First cut “Berzerkerzorn” (no idea) is promising, the band coming out strong in a Skeletonwitch-y blackened thrash place, but also having a strong command of pure metal guitar heroics; not bad at all. Second song “Titanenerbe” gets slower and has a bit of a death metal boogie flavour to it, the Viking swing threatening to come out but never quite rearing its hairy head, the black metal at the end coming strong and refreshing as well. Strong pair o' openers there, the variety working surprisingly well.
By album's midpoint, the band still hasn't lost steam, eighth cut “Bittere Wacht” slowing things down to a bit of a Viking DM victory march, and it works, refreshing the listener for the remaining handful of songs. Still: shave 20 minutes off this and focus more on hitting hard and fast and taking off, and this impressive album would probably whip up to an 8.0 pretty fast, tunes like the grinding “Schatten Über Arkham” showing this band's strengths in a big way.