Review: Anderwelt – 2084 [ENG]

First doom metal with post-metal and symphony and some sludge riffs, then it turns into bitter existential melodic death metal akin to ThirdMoon’s „Autumnal Moonlight“, with intricate multilayered arrangements, a shadowplay with symphonic and mdm instruments. The female vocals are smooth as silk and all perfect, so haunting, I’m really in love with her voice, what other bands does she sing with?

And the arrangements, the harmonies, as all Anderwelt albums it has a very rich symphonic atmosphere, the strings sound like I’m sitting in an orchestral chamber. Makes me wonder, are these real symphonic instruments or high-end synth samples? They are perfect, they add grandeur and exquisiteness silhouettes behind the doom and melodic death metal parts. The raspy guttural vocals have a tiny distorted pitch element, which is like an element of chaos that emphasizes the vocals‘ depth, plus there are some clean male vocals with philosophic reciting. Overall, learning this album’s lyrics should add another layer of understanding of the 2084 drama, which is so amazingly expressed in the vocalists‘ emotions, the soothing melodies and mighty aggressive riffs.

This album sounds a bit less eclectic/experimental than the earlier Anderwelt albums, and the black metal patch is this time rather small in this diverse sound canvas. The experimental kink remains in this album’s guitar solos, some of them sound truly alien. This album is a solid A, every element is well balanced and thought over by the composers. Maybe the death metal vocals could be a bit more varied, but considering their top-notch quality they fit in everywhere on this album. The subtle recording and mastering ambience is splendid, maybe one day Estatic Fear album 3 could be recorded and mastered by the same genius sound engineers?..