Ok folks so this year of 2020 you will see some new and expansive reviews from yours truly.  I do not claim to be a Black Metal expert by any stretch of the imagination, however that’s not to say I do not like Black Metal.  My origins with Black Metal are rooted in more of the older school bands, such as Venom, Bathory, Darkthrone, Dissection, Immortal and some others.

Over the last several years I have started to dip back into the BM pool and am discovering new and exciting bands and some which are just over the top, such as Aosoth and Witch of 1692.  We can now add Porta Nigra to my ever growing list of bands that just kick ass and I had never heard of them up until Schöpfungswut, their third album.  Porta Nigra sing in their native German language and they are an Avant Garde Black Metal band and with some of their industrial weird sounds, couple that with the German language and some choral style vocals at times remind me a bit of Rammstein gone Black Metal, which is fine by me since Rammstein are great.

But really this is some brutal shit-opening with “Die Kosmiker” this haunting guitar melody whips right out the starting gate and the riffing is intense and I love this lead riff.  It even has melody and with the bands new singer, Tongue, growling and shrieking in German it adds even more menace to the song.  It’s violent sounding, yet ethereal and beautiful.  And with only 6 songs the album is long at a 47 minute run time.  I’ll get more to that later on.  Regardless a great opening song with lots of blasting drums too.

This song is trumped by “Die Augen des Basilisken”.  The Holy Shit part is the opening with the isolated vocals in the beginning with the guitar riff then right into the blast and the vocals are epic and this is where the Rammstein component comes in.  It’s how the vocals are arranged and it sounds very chest pumping and German patriotic and is quite brilliant.  At over 8 minutes this is another doozy of a long song.  Those German patriotic vocal moments come in full swing at the 2.37 part and while I listen to this part I want to have a pint of German Ale and toasting everyone while I am devouring some blood wurst and spaetzle.  The song gets into more of the violent style blasting with berating vocals that are meant to decapitate the listener from 10,000 miles away.  There are more of these patriotic choruses throughout the various blasting and really this is quite an emotive and powerful track.

“Unser Weg nach Elysium” has more vocal patriotic chants with some layered vocals and a cool guitar solo pretty early on.  Finally at the 2.23 the blasting rolls into more of a mid-paced moment then it leaps back into the blasting with more catchy vocal arrangements with a killer lead guitar riff that is fast and haunting, but still retaining melody.  The song has some great sower, mid paced moments at the 5.20 with the vocals coming forth, spewed and are vicious.  Brilliant.  The title track at over 8 minutes closes out the album and is similar to much of what I mentioned above.  A great song to end this album.

Porta Nigra have a lot going for them and I must say I really love this album.  The only thing that can get a little much is the songs are very long.  When playing such brutally ferocious music really long songs can get to the point of …. hmm ok where are we going with this, especially when there is so much blasting.  I would recommend that maybe if the band really loves writing long songs then mixing some slower moments in.  However luckily for Porta Nigra, they have an abundance of catchy riffs therefore this really holds my attention.  The vocals in the German language is a huge plus.  I cannot imagine them singing in English.  Their style is best suited for their German language.  The various vocal arrangements and chest thumping epic moments are another highlight.  And hey you want some bass guitar well the thumping bass on Schöpfungswut will collapse your stereo and chest cavity.  I’m very happy that there is a bottom end on this.

Schöpfungswut from Porta Nigra is destined to be a stand out for 2020 and I for one am happy to start dipping back into the Black Metal pool once again and this is a pretty crushing album.  Buy or Die!

 

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