Black Metal from the woods. Founded by Tim and Flo back in 1998, this band has released two demos, two full length albums, and a 7" picture-vinyl. Their music can roughly be described as black progressive nature metal. - Band Website
Great band, a mixture of black metal, folk, and post-rock. Huge breath of fresh air. Check out their band website and distro.
Klabautamann - Der Ort (2005)
Quote:
A while back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact blacker side to Woburn another project by some of the same members called Klabautamann, who were supposed to be a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped.
Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track.
The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing.
The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness.
It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms...
Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great. After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure! - Aquarius Records
Label: Heavy Horses Records
Band Members:
Tim Steffens - Guitars, Bass, Lead Vocals Florian Toyka - Guitars, Bass, Vocals Patrick Schroeder - Session Drums
Tracklist:
1. Der Ort
2. Forlorn Sea
3. Winternacht
4. The River
5. Waldschrat
6. Red Urn
7. The Wanderer
8. October
Klabautamann - Klabautamann (EP, 2007)
Quote:
Ultra limited seven inch picture disc from these German black metallers. But Klabautamann aren't at all your typical black metal group, beginning with the fact that most of them also do time in metallic math rockers Woburn House, who we raved about on a past list. And that math rock pedigree definitely finds its way into the sound of Klabautamann. As always there's plenty of growling demon-vox, blasting beats, and buzzing riffage, but more than half the time is spent in various non-metal forms, from blissed out dreamy folk interludes, to simple slowcore crawls, to weird angular prog workouts. And even in full blasting metal mode, the sound is anything but typical, the buzzing and blasting is infused with haunting melancholy melodies, ultra catchy hooks, weird burbling underwater bass, but all deftly wrapped up in the curious freaked out, gloriously demented black-post-math-metal-whatever that is Klabautamann.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each copy hand numbered, packaged with a cover/sheet of liner notes with the credits and lyrics, and the picture disc is an eye popping full color illustration of dancing gnomes and faeries on one side, a sleeping witch, curled up with here staff and bugle and mysterious book of spells on the other. The best part is the 7" also comes with a cd-r with the tracks from the single, so you can throw those right on your iPod and hang that single on your wall right where it belongs... - Aquarius Records
Label: Heavy Horses Records
Band Members:
Tim Steffens - Guitars, Vocals Florian Toyka - Guitars Patrick Schroeder - Session Drums Christoph Graf - Session Bass
Tracklist:
1. Negeder Mand
2. Tuvstarr
All ripped to FLAC by me using EAC, then converted to mp3 using Lame at V0. Log file of FLAC rips included. Note: the EP was ripped from the CD-r that comes with the 7" when you buy it.
to download from Rockbox
/ XBTT (1) by Dejavu