Equilibrium – Rekreatur (2010)

After being undecided about this release for a few weeks now, we have to say that after very careful consideration we can’t really decide if this is great or just something is too watered down in lush keyboard arrangements to hide the underlying mediocrity of the extremely repetitive song structures.

A part of us says that we should love “Rekreatur” since it has a very bombastic sound, crushing vocals and an overall very epic feeling to it. Another part of us says that the underlying guitar work is plain dull and it feels exactly the same after cycling through a few songs, that the whole music sound very overpowered by the growls and the massive keyboard arrangements. But in general, we have to agree that in terms of this being an album that will get you in a better mood, an epic battle mood that is, the band does an excellent job. The sound is massive and it’s something that we can see ourselves headbanging to in a live setting.

Equilibrium did some re-structuring before going into the studio for “Rekreatur” and we now have a new vocalist Robse and a new drummer Hati. These additions did give Equilibrium an extra boost since Robse is a very powerful growler and Hati is a solid drummer in general. But in terms of the vocals, they tend to get very linear through the release and while we love nice growls, we also get bored if they never change.

The band’s mastermind is René Berthiaume, and he did a pretty solid job in crafting all the music for this release. He also did a very dull job when it comes to the rhythmical guitars, but that is something else. The main focus of the band’s sound is the massive keyboard arrangements, just think of a Folk version of Dimmu Borgir. With this approach, you can hide pretty much everything else that is going underneath, except for the solid drumming.

While we somewhat like the overall crushing sound of this release, we also get tired of it a bit too fast. It’s also a bit ‘too happy’ at some times, making it get annoying instantly (like on “Die Affeninsel”). The grandeur feeling that some songs have like “Der Wassermann” and “Verbrannte Erde” have is pretty neat and if it wasn’t exploited that much would have been even more effective. The flow of the album is somewhat ok, but near the end we have a few very long songs that might tire people that are not huge fans of this style.

In general, we have to recognize that “Rekreatur” is a powerful album. It might not be 100% great, but it has great moments. The overall epicness to it, is exactly with the genre requires and the over the top keyboards are sweet candy to many listeners ears. So if you are a very big fan of Epic Folk/Viking Metal then this is the release you have been waiting for, if you are a fan of the band, it will take a bit to get used to it, but you will still enjoy some of this release.

Release: October 12th, 2010

Country: Germany