Porta-Nigra-KaiserschnittI absolutely loved 2012 release ‘Fin de Siècle’ from this wacked out decedent German dark metal duo. It delivered the most compulsive and memorable song of the year in the form of ‘Meglomaniac’, one listen to it and you were hooked with a chorus that was impossible to budge from your head for weeks. The album was so good I snapped up a physical copy at the first opportunity and helped subject a fair few people to that particular song; nothing like spreading the madness. The group have been fairly silent since then but recently offered a free download of a couple of tracks including a remix of that particular song just in case you had forgotten it, along with a new number ‘Femme Fatale’. Now drummer, vocalist O and his comrade in all things nutty Gilles de Rais are back with another dose of decadence that would no doubt be listened to by all the best bourgeois marquis if they were suddenly transported through time to wreak havoc in the present day (now there’s a thought).

Rather than that, this time round though the band are treading back to bygone eras and visiting a time where the megalomania of Kaiser Wilhelm II was rife, Mata Hari was getting Frisian pulses raging and the battlefields of the not so Great War were being littered with corpses. The one slight stumbling block to the Prussian empire circa 1914, is that this time around lyrically everything is in German so there is a slight problem in interpretation. Luckily O has a very expressive vocal delivery so you can easily pick up the gist of things and the Teutonic theatricality would probably not work in any other language.

Musically the band are difficult to pigeonhole, avant-garde certainly, black metal well not exactly. It’s a lot to do with the groove that they so admirably conjure up as well as their all compulsive melodies. Although narratively plundering the same battlefields as the likes of countrymen Endstille similarities end there. These are no tales of the swine in the trenches but more of the fine wine swilling pigs urging the cannon fodder to their ultimate glory. Such a call to arms is the first thing heard as Die Mensur swaggers in and the dictatorial vocals ring out with a blood red mist clearly evoked in their delivery. Musically it’s all thick and strident riffing with squealing guitars and a bombastic drum pummelling. It’s hard not to want to stomp along with it as the choppy surge infects and pompous horns blare away in the background. A spiralling solo adds to it all and “nutty” and “unique” are the two words that sum things up best before some traditional German period music is sampled at the end of the track. A black and roll furrow along with a melody with shrill guitar squeals that reminds a bit of ‘Bring the Noise’ follows on that ode to Mata Hari Femme Fatale. Clean harmonic vocals and some hideous screams and bellows make it all the more versatile and there is plenty going on, not least a great bloody and again incredibly catchy tune. The title track thickly chugs in with some samples from the age making it chillingly atmospheric. A story is being told with spoken vocals and even if I can’t completely follow it, things are no less interesting and the imaginative thrust of bands such as the equally intriguing Carach Angren makes this all the more volatile and highly-charged.

There are times there is an industrialised element going on and along with the fast riffing and harmonious vocal croons on tracks such as In Stahlgewittern this Storm Of Steel does remind a little of Rammstein along with the craziness of Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, which is no bad thing at all. It certainly makes me wonder what this lot would be like live, I can imagine them going down a storm somewhere like Wacken but do not even know if they play shows at all. We get an interlude on Kein schönerer Tod which is just piano, spoken female and male oration and the sound of gunfire in the background; very chilling and ghostly. Massive screaming, shrill guitar parts power out the speaker, a xylophone is tickled and massive austere vocal bellows hone in. ‘Mata Hari’ is unveiled in all her glory and it’s a showstopper of a track, weird, off-kilter and quite honestly completely schizoid but what’s not to love? Even if this one is obtuse and difficult to fathom out, it’s rich, delirious and fantastically compulsive never giving you a clue about where it is going. As a whole this is an album that keeps bringing me back to it and like its predecessor it is one I think I am going to have real trouble to put down and concentrate on other things. Each of the nine tracks on it have their own identity and when mixed together the effect is excellent as it all flows and gels together. I guess I made the mistake looking for another ‘Megalomania’ here, nothing quite has the same effect at lodging in the head so thoroughly but that kind of makes it easier to look on the album as a whole and take in everything that is going on without being distracted. As Ich-Zerfall adds some strange noises and effects amidst the thick burgeoning guitar clamour and last track (suitably entitled) ‘Der letzte Ton’ concludes this crazed and dizzying ride with rollicking riffs and harmonious vocals, I just want to play it over again and again and again.

(8.5/10 Pete Woods)

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