KANONENFIEBER – Die Urkatastrophe
October 6, 2024, a month ago
(Century Media)
When a band's sole reason for existing is to write about the horrors of war, and they play death metal, they're either going to sound like Bolt Thrower or Hail Of Bullets; here, Kanonenfieber take the Van Drunen steamroller express through a slightly more melodic battlefield but one that ends up in the same atmospheric place.
And I'm all for it, tracks like barrelling “Sturmtrupp” or hold-my-mead bark-along “Der Maulwruf” almost—ALMOST—going to a place of Amon Amarth anthemics, but not quite, which is good, because I don't really want to go there, but I can appreciate a long-distance headbang. I'm not familiar with this band's debut record—this is their second—but I can imagine the blackened melodic death sounds here are a step up in terms of tight songwriting and delivery, because this is very solid stuff.
I find myself wondering what it would sound like with a significantly rawer production sound, and I also wish it was a bit shorter (50 minutes is easily 15 too long), but these guys—well, who knows, they're all anonymous and masked—are here to rail against the horrors of World War I, not to make sure I bump this up to an 8.0, which I won't.
I will still enjoy this one well enough to recommend to DM fans, and I actually like acoustic closer “Als Die Waffen Kamen”, the song totally working when it totally shouldn't.
