Semen Datura – Einsamkeit
I am so thankful that this drum machine driven, Darkthrone affinity is bleeding out of the BM genre, because it has time and again weakened the true essence of the music. Bands like Semen Datura, having been toiling beneath the banner since ’98, have survived the rise and fall of it all, and continue to make music regardless of how obscure they may be. And I guess I would consider this band a figment of obscurity, for this being their 3rd full length album, I have never heard, or heard of this band until now… the quite skillfully composed and unique sounding “Einsamkeit”. S.D. uphold the true essence of BM with melodic dissonance in the chords and harmonies that lilt down as if to be covered by a comforting blanket of falling autumn leaves, but they stray from the tried and true “formula” that has all but ruined black metal, by incorporating some progged out chords, time signatures, “jammed” out drum progressions (something a machine could NEVER replicate), and deeply moving feelings in the music as found on the stunningly atmospheric track, “Unter Bleigrauen Wolkenlasten”. This 6 minutes of greatness touches upon a deeper emotion of hypnotic musical manipulation and even a minute hint of post rock droning for that lost in the woodlands sense of wonder. From this point on, cancerous BM screams embrace other avenues of expression in the form of dreamy clean singing and more shouted moments when the riffs call for something more pointed. Tracks like “Mental Outlaw” are a bit disjointed in structure as the band butts even more of a droning post rock influence up against sparse moments of strangeness where spoken word passages creep in the background as if to throw the listener out of the dense atmosphere established in the 1st half of this album. Then “Marschbefehl” hurls us back into the trashing, malevolent speed, yet S.D. maintain an awkward delivery that just feels a bit off somehow as they switch off into clean guitar passages and other musical genres for inspiration. The end result is infinitely interesting and keeps this CD deeply rooted in my player, but it is rather disjointing to the senses. This is undoubtedly the bands intention, but I feel that if they were to focus on more of a centered and powerful atmosphere and emotive sense of songwriting as found on the aforementioned “Unter Bleigrauen Wolkenlasten”, they would have achieved a coherent and moving greatness. I thin Semen Datura has all the tools they need here to indeed create their masterpiece, and even though I have greatly appreciated the music and creativity found on “Einsamkeit”, I feel they need to strip down their songwriting model and take a closer look at what is most effective and embrace that, over blatant attempts at being odd. –Marty
ATMF
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