30-second-Grindcore-tracks, beer, faecal humour, men in drags, beer, porno film samples, beer- this is what you would excpect when opening the booklet of the first official full-length of FREUND HEIN (drawn in the style of above shown CD- cover). And this is not what you get. Well, not exactly. If you want the men in drags, go to FREUND HEIN’s MySpace-site and watch their pics. And beer may have played a not quite unsignificant role in the development of this album. That and stuff which might be a bit on the psychedelic side of substances.
Formed in 1994, FREUND HEIN (which is a german synonyme for the Grim Reaper) have steadily delivered outputs since 1997 (first under the name CRAVING FOR VALUSIA). But although I have stumbled upon the name before, I never heard anything of their older stuff so I can not comment on the evolution of them. Nevertheless, there must have been one – I was relieved to not hear some crappy fun-grind noise but a real production, and a good one as well. And right after the first seconds FREUND HEIN make clear that they do know how to play their instruments. The base for “Chaos Immanent” is highly skilled, technical Thrash/Death Metal. After that follows half an hour of wild collection of breaks, growls, guitar solos, jodeling, some vocal parts which remind me of SCATMAN JOHN, tempo changes which make CRYPTOPSY look straightforward. References might be SOLEFALD (The clean vocals), KOROVAKILL, MESHUGGAH and mainly SYSTEM OF A DOWN, at least that is what I decipher from this “immanent chaos”.
What sounds interesting if you are into weird tunes is definitly worth listening to, BUT (yep, there it is, the BUT. Two, in fact) it repeats itself towards the end. As progressive and even avantgardistic this might be, after some time there is a pattern in the chaos and I get the impression that FREUND HEIN try to be chaotic by force. This is not that bad, because they seem to know what they are doing and end the album exactly where it could get on your nerves. The second flaw is that they are not exactly doing anything new, it is a mix of everything above mentioned. Admittedly individual in this constellation, nevertheless nothing that hasn’t been there before.
However, that leaves us an album which I can recommend with good conscience. If you are thinking of ordering it, try listening to the MySpace- tracks first, this might not be for everyone. For the next FREUND HEIN output I want some (only a few, please) straight parts – that would promote them from “good” to “super”.
-Tentakel P.
VITALS:
Release: 2006
Label: Self-Production
Avantgenre: Stop-And-Go Metal
Duration: 31:46
Origin: Austria
Official site: http://www.myspace.com/freundhein
Review online since: 04.09.2008 / 14:45:38
TRACKLIST:
01 – White Dictator
02 – Anthropomorphen Gestirns Vergang
03 – Der Tod Läßt Sich Nicht Berechnen
04 – Junk
05 – In Den Letzten Zügen Liegt Die Menschheit
06 – Rth
07 – Sorry, I Forgot To Pray Today
08 – Truth And Other Lies
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