Die Toten Kehren Wieder Mit Dem Wind

Am Ufer Des Sees

None Shall Defy 2011

Germanic black metal possessed of melancholy and ghostly atmosphere sweeps out of your speakers and over you as you listen to the DLP rerelease of the 2005 album from Die Toten Kehren Wieder Mit Dem Wind.  After a short and simple keyboard passage, fuzzed out guitars and an ancient yet epic melody floats out.  The song is imbued with the shivering coldness of early Burzum which is enhanced by the tortured shrieks of Bradhenr.  An Den Schwarzen Wassern continues on this theme of melancholic melodies but drifts into a moment of acoustic stillness.  Forlorn synth enhances this moment before rumbling bass drums and foggy guitars enter the like a freezing wind.  The initial section of Das Lachen Der Lebenden Toten brings to mind Gehenna's First Spell but this is quickly cast aside for blasting black metal riffing, which in execution becomes quite hypnotic with its monotone riff.  The track devolves into some crystalline synth, bringing a subterranean feel to the track's final moments.  Menschwerdung/Staubaonen breaks with the overall feeling of the song, the main melody borders on hopefulness.  It races towards a hint of optimism, both in its tempo and in its actual notes.  The album's closer, Das Lied Der Gefallten Weiden, begins with burly riffs and constant bass drums, a melody floats across this din, like a zephyr in the nightsky.  The song comes to a quite end through the use of ambient synth.  To me this is the low point of the album as the melodies and songwriting had a stronger impact on the preceding tracks.  Die Toten Kehren Wieder Mit Dem Wind covers similar ground as early Burzum but with a more melodic edge to the music.  Am Ufer Des Sees is damp and grey, cold and sorrowful.