Warnungstraum “Inter Peritura” (2011)

Despite a German-sounding name, Italian WARNUNGSTRAUM (which sort of means “a dream of warning”) honor their mother country by having solely endemic lyrics. These are written by Barlett Green, who also master the music, drum programming and clean vocals, and the vocals are handled by Cabal Dark Moon (who’s also active in the uncompromisable OBSCURE DEVOTION). Inter peritura is their first release and it will be offered to the world through Greece’s Nykta Records by a set of unconventional black metal spiced with ambient and folk. The album begins as many other albums do with an intro song – Ingresso – that in this case is an almost 2 minute story with, perhaps unintentional, hints of an early MORTIIS, and gives a general feeling of how you would imagine that the medival era would sound through a modern device. However, the dark ages will not arrive via this. Instead Il Sacrificio del Tempo sneaks upon your eardrum and soon delivers a nice full spectrum of sounds with eastern Europe pagan black metal references, with the sharp and harsh vocals well-kept together. Next in line, Il mondo è cenere begins with a somewhat annoying guitar and string arrangement that wanders between being rather pleasant to being capable of piercing though your head. But don’t worry – the song soon turns into another fast creation vibrating with tremolo picking and hammering drums. Following this, the intermediate Hoc unum scio is dominated by a finger picking acoustic guitar, male vocals, and hoarse singing, but rather fast passes us on forward to the next track. That is, Grave regina immonda, which in turn leads us deeper inwards through a melancholic path into what may be presupposed to be despair. Very promising. Again, WARNUNGSTRAUM brings forth their artillery of guitars, base, drums and ambient elements that we’ve learned to know by now, and this continues on into La maschera del nulla (that I get translated to “the mask of nothingness”). Overall it is reminding a bit of constillations such as NYKTALGIA and AUSTERE, but without the overwhealming sadness and the general feeling of being a pitiable and lonesome little creature in an evil world that these two bands may offer. Thus, WARNUNGSTRAUM do not make you feel desolate, and regarding their sound, they have their own way of blending the elements of both ambient influences and the rawness of underground black metal and they’ve managed to get a good and crunchy guitar sound. The drums are programmed and what’s there to say about that more than that they sound like a drum machine, albeit a well-handled one. Let each and everyone decide for themself if that’s hot or that’s not. The same goes for the album’s complete atmosphere; as long as there’s more than one instrument going on there’s not much to fuss about. But as soon as there’s a guitar on its own ( f.ex. as 4.14 into the second-last song) you suddenly become disillusioned and find yourself sitting by a simple studio recording device. Ultimo corno di guerra’s beginning is a viscous and less energetic constillation than its former comrades, but it soon meanders itself out into a frenzied folkish black metal story as a final statement of the characteristics of WARNUNGSTRAUM. To finalize, the outro Congedo is an instrumental mishmash that leaves me feeling a bit of motion sickness. Inter peritura has its ups and it has its downs, but in general it indicates that it might be worth to keep an eye on WARNUNGSTRAUM in the future.

Septikemi

VITALS:

Release:  25.05.2011
Label:  Nykta Records
Avantgenre:  Ambient Black Metal
Duration:  40:56
Origin: Italy
Official site: http://www.warnungstraum.altervista.org/
Review online since:  24.05.2011 / 18:14:03