Mundtot
Spätsommer

Quieting Germans sing of the late summer if we are to believe their titles, Spätsommer is their debut album following their 2010 EP Endzeit which is also the title of the opening track of this album. And as you can understand from the titles mentioned already they use their native German language, the road on the cover artwork is also a bit of a strange one and one can wonder what the quartet was thinking of when deciding for such a cover. I honestly don’t know what they want to say with that but fortunately it is not analysing the cover art that is my role as a music reviewer, it is about the music of the album.

Musically it is quite typical heavy metal, it has some traces of the gothic side of things. The tempo is a bit low through the album and my feel is that it is only the opening track Endzeit that offer any significant increase in that slow pace. The vocalist has a fairly typical singing voice of a male singer, nothing particularly interesting and exciting. That same thing can be said about the sound and production which is fairly genre typical and the album itself feels rather standardised in its form. There isn’t an overly big variation on the album either, it is quite similar all eleven songs, making this an album that may have difficulty convincing the listener.

I am not impressed, meaning that it may not be bad but it is not interesting. Not even the German language makes it work well and I find it very difficult to really get into what this album offers, the low tempo makes it rather boring or at least tiring and the same goes for the lack of variation. The album is okay musically but as I said it is quite boring in the longer run and it feels fairly standard as well making it a bit difficult for me to really seeing the point of this album. The opening track Endzeit is very good and stands towering above the rest of the tracks on the album, showing at least a trace of songwriting imagination. Overall though it is not really a debut that promises much in terms of what it shows and I really have to hope that they have more in the bank of ideas than what is shown on this album because there isn’t really much here to get excited about.

I have really given this album many times now and a good chance to take place and to get into my mind and all of that but it just doesn’t get there. The album feels insignificant, like they are just doing what is typical of the genre and they do it in some sort of slow motion capture. Seen to the quality of the thing it is neither bad nor good, just a collection of songs that isn’t really going anywhere. Maybe they should call themselves Status Quo, their music certainly is. I advice them to go back to the drawing board and rethink their musical idea and judging by reviews I have found on the web I am not the only one to have reservation about this album.