Atrocity – After the Storm (2010)

Atrocity is one of those bands that you really don’t know what’s going on with them, but you eagerly await for their next release to see what they will sound like. First they started off by playing pretty decent Death Metal, and then they started incorporating weird non-metal elements into their music, way ahead of their time for 1994 in their album “Blut”. Lately (and we say lately very loosely) they released their “Werk 80” and “Werk 80 II”, in 1997 and 2008, these albums featured covers of popular pop songs of the 80’s.

More recently (four years ago) they released “Atlantis” and they where considered and ‘extreme metal’ band again, because of the ‘aggressiveness’ of this release. Now in 2010, the band is jumping into the Folk Metal/Ethno Metal area with their very impressive “After the Storm”, an album that features Yasmin Krull on vocals. This jump will surely puzzle some people, but for us that been listening to the band for quite a while it’s merely an interesting twist in the band’s career.

With great musicians/composers/producers such as Alexander Krull and Thorsten Bauer, the music is outstanding. If you want a clearer picture, imagine Dead Can Dance, Loreena McKennitt, Blackmore’s Night all mixed together. However, Atrocity still adds its own pounding guitars, harsh vocals and intricate drumming. The overall feeling of this album very cohesive and it flows magically, from song to song, even if one is more ‘metal’ than the previous one, this release grabs you and never makes you lose interest.

Starting things off with the epic “A New Arrival”, you get the feeling you will be in for an epic ride through the band’s interpretation of ethnic and folk sounds. Yasmin’s vocals are very ethereal and are greatly helped by the intoxicating keyboard-induced atmosphere. After this epic entrance, the band moves on to a more traditional Folk song with “Call of Yesteryear” that features flutes and a choir sections that will rival any other Folk Rock/Metal band in the scene.

Much through the album the band switches between folk-ish/ethnic sounding songs to straight-forward folk rock ballads and powerful Folk Metal songs (i.e. “After the Storm” to “Silvan Spirit” to “Black Mountain”). Songs like “As the Sun Kissed the Sky” and “After the Storm” feature nice ethnic/folk percussions on top of typical folk singing. And then again we switch to powerful Folk Metal songs like “Transilvania”, probably our favorite song of the album.

Overall, we think that “After the Storm” is another great release from the enigmatic Atrocity. Some people might bash them for ‘changing’ so drastically, but when the music and ideas are good, who really cares about that. If you are looking for some relaxing Folk Rock/Metal album, we are pretty sure it can’t get better than this (in 2010 at least), so get on your computer and pre-order this epic release.

Release: September 14th, 2010

Country: Germany