Minenwerfer – Alpenpässe (2019)

March 18, 2024

One of the most magnificent pieces of music I’ve heard in some time. I’ve seen this artwork bandied about online / on people’s RYM lists for years (also I’m pretty sure YouTube has recommended me this album about 700 times). The art is very striking to me; a soldier wielding a gun above the clouds has a strange otherworldly feel to it.

Musically, I get the same feeling from this as I did from Peste Noire’s debut record. There is far more of a post-(genre) (lol) feel here, especially in the guitar work, which results in a far more trance-like atmospheric state, but with that unpinning level of violence and ferocity that makes things seem just a little bit scary – the way good black metal should be, might I add. The production is fantastic and even at an hour or so in length the album does not outstay its welcome. My favourite tracks would have to be the opening 17-minute epic “Der Blutharsch” or the savage “Withered Tombs” that sees the drumming speeding up to the superhuman levels of say, Frost in 1349, and the rest of the band follows in intensity. Brilliant stuff.