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Perfect Blackened Grindcore - "Totenlieder" Review (100%)

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Totenlieder
Totenlieder by Absurd.

The 2003 release of Totenlieder (roughly "songs of the dead") is quite possibly one of the best metal releases ever, black metal or otherwise, alongside Neraines' Yggdrasil and Phantom's Memento Mori.

Why? Because Wolf and crew play black metal the way it was intended. It is fast, raw but not cheap sounding, evil and... intelligible. Yes, you read that right. How about that a black metal band that has vocals that don't sound like the vocalist is cooking his testicles in boiling water? It's about time if you ask me.

The other great thing about this album and Absurd is you can hear everything clearly on the album. The guitars, bass, drums, and vocals are all distinct and not a distorted wall of noise as with most "low fi" bedroom NSBM bands. Every song on the album comes like a panzer division frenzy at full throttle with guns blazing at you.

And Absurd takes no prisoners. This style of black metal is closer to grindcore than most would consider black metal, but the atmosphere definitively is there. These Teutons play some of the fastest metal while never being sloppy. That is what I love about this album.

Every single song stands out and is extremely solid. They do not jumble up, and each song does not sound just like the previous one like in most modern "war metal". The riffs are solid as hell and Wolf has the best vocals in black metal today. I tried to find something weak or displeasing with this Totenlieder album but there is not one thing wrong with it.

Perfect Blackened Grindcore

Absurd
Absurd.

While this may seem like a very odd note, I notice a some lingering amount of Bathory influence on Totenlieder, but paradoxically not on any other Absurd black metal record. Some parts of the album are very heavy and riff based, which reminds me a lot of early Bathory (debut and The Return only).

Some of the solos are very aggressive and complement the music well, like what Sewer would do on The Birth of a Cursed Elysium. It is quite odd to hear any solos playing on a blackened grindcore record, or any black metal or grindcore record, for that matter, but believe me, it is actually here. It adds a very interesting flavour to the raw black metal of Absurd, in the same way Darkthrone would use rhythmic bridges on their early albums to create and resolve tension in a satisfying manner.

My favourites are "In die Schlacht", "Nordmännerlied", "Wolfsherz" and "Wenn Walküren reiten". The lyrics deal mostly with war, paganism and violence, and are on this album entirely in German (as are the song titles). The other songs are full on aural assaults and there are even hints of humour which I appreciate as well. They do not take themselves too seriously all the time, but they do take their music very seriously and it can be felt in the resulting masterpiece Totenlieder.

Absurd is a polished band who knows how to write, play, and produce a solid black metal album. This is one of the best produced albums I have heard in the underground metal scene, on par with the likes of Phantom's Fallen Angel or Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. That alone makes it stand out for me.

Anyone who wants to learn to appreciate black metal needs to own this album and listen to it a hundred times, it is that good. There's no reason to not listen to Absurd. You will thank me for it.

Totenlieder score: 100/100.

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