Eisregen
Marschmusik

German extreme metal veterans Eisregen are back with music for soldiers on the march. It is their eleventh album since the debut that was released back in 1998; they are an industrious band with several EPs to add to those eleven albums. Many of those in the latter years, we at Hallowed have reviewed two of the albums and both of them met with a rather indifferent view. The charts in Germany says something different than we do though, they have reached as high as 27th position on the German charts with the album Schlangensonne from 2010 and the label targets a top 20 position for this album and they claim to be pushing for that in the press sheet.

Musically they do remain in the same style as before, it is extreme metal of the melodic kind, pretty low tempo and with vocals in German. The vocals are growly or grunting, not particularly interesting in itself but interacts pretty well with the musical style. The album is not overly heavy, I would describe it as a family friendly extreme metal album and I suppose it can do fairly well in the charts provided it has the appropriate marketing for it. One has to point out though that they do more or less the same thing as I have heard them do before. You cannot really accuse them of creating something that we haven’t heard before and that they make a varied album, and the album is long as well with over 50 minutes playing time.

Overall I think that this is a good solid album, considering that they have done well in the charts before I don’t see why not in terms of a decent chart position for this album as well. This album it plays on what they have done before will not alienate their fans and I believe that the fans will get this album as well and find that it offers what they want. For those not really into this band it might not be as interesting, it is a fairly good but at the same time fairly forgetful. I would have liked them to be a little more adventurous, it would have been pretty much more interesting with a Werk 2 album for the Marienbad project where two of the band’s members were credited for the first Werk.

In the end I think we have a good album here, but not an overly memorable album. It should appeal to those into the genre and those into the band. No track really stand out for me, they are fairly similar and fairly even in terms of quality. For me it would be nice with a little bit more dynamics throughout the album but it works okay and I doubt that anyone would be disappointed if that one bought the album. In the absolute end though, I think it would be safe to say that fans of the band should look at this album.

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