I’ve had a few moments where I look at the speakers and ask myself ‘what the fuck am I listening to?’ Of course I already know obviously but in terms of the sounds coming into my ears, it’s a process to process and then decide if I like it enough to stick around.

Which brings me to Todesstoss, and the mastermind behind this maelstrom of mania that has been pouring from my speakers. Martin “Traumorgane” Lang is the mastermind so the credits go to: W – vocals / Traumorgane – vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussions, synthesizers
Guest vocals on “Greiser Witz schwelt im Geschlecht” by Lydia, and she is responsible for the haunting female vocals saturated throughout the album. They’re actually kind of creepy if you’re not expecting them because they emerge from the insanity swarming around them.

Todesstoss reminds me of this weird album by Furze called UTD. That album was like listening to demons fucking, unholy and vile, and somehow Todesstoss manage to get even deeper than that, right away, as a matter of fact with “Antirobotid” a fierce mutant that seems angry with it’s own existence, one minute blasting and off-kilter riffs that are more akin to knife slashes than musical notes. The track ends with these scattershot drum fills and rolls that at first sound like a monkey on PCP but then they’re making sense and it’s like a coalescing moment that I thought I would mention.

This is a DSBM album at it’s grotesque core, but it’s deeper than Happy Days, Shining or Silencer. Traumorgane sounds like a tortured soul, his vocals are hypnotic, reaching into the deepest parts of a mind in pain.

I ended up listening to this on shuffle yesterday driving home in a thunderstorm, and it matched up perfectly, “Ghulismus” is the fifth track and I’m sort of bouncing around, but whatever. Holy shit, it’s 23:54 minutes long and sounds like a manic episode set to music, like three hills and valleys of sadness and unhinged mania. There’s literally so much going on in the song that it takes multiple listens to really grasp what this guy is doing and by that I mean,  it’s just Traumorgane handling the instruments.

OK, so there’s the strident, vicious anger of “Tanz der Tausend Masken” the rawest guitar tone this side of Darkthrone, but sounding nothing like them. It moves along with a lumbering gait, for it’s 10:33 length; it doesn’t stay like that, it goes off the fucking rails with lunatic time signatures, guitars that sound like they’re being tortured and Traumorgane howling like a horde of banshees.

All transmutation aside,  “Ihre Gebilztheiten” is the first track to actually have a structure, and it stabs at you with iron daggers on some of the oddest riffs that have been spawned from a guitar, but that doesn’t mean that it’s confusing to the point where you want to punch babies. This is definitely a good thing and it’s the first sign of the darkness that is to come, like a vantablack void.

“Greiser Witz schwelt im Geschlecht” doesn’t let the weirdness stop, it’s unsettling; aggressively so. I would say it’s like the 9^th circle of Hell. Each track has its own life, and therefore you never know what exactly is going to happen next, like an extremely depressing and bleak haunted house where the soul burns.

Todesstoss is compared to Burzum in the press blurb… I  do see it (indicating that I have in fact listened to his music), especially in the vocals, but that’s where the similarities end because fuck that guy.

It’s especially not evident in the final track “Bannflucht Sahnenland”. The shortest track. It’s like an acid trip through the nightmares of a lunatic.

I think if you like Silencer, Shining, Bethlehem and Teitanblood; this should be in your Playlist. Own it, play it and fall asleep to it and see what happens in your dreams. You won’t be sorry.

[Visit the band's website]

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