Helrunar – Niederkunfft (2015)

Germany’s Helrunar is by far the least imaginative and most straightforward band in the Lopus Lounge stable of great musical acts. However, there are some decent moments and redeeming qualities that make this band good enough for us to review them over countless others we receive every day. Featuring eight track and around 56 minutes of music, this album marks the band’s first full-length release in nearly four year.

The album’s opener, “Niederkunfft” nicely provides a window to the band’s musical approach and unluckily everything else will sound quite familiar. There are some nice chilling elements here and there like the creepy atmosphere and the closing of “Totentanz”, but the vanilla tracks like “Der Endkrist” leave a lot to be desired based on Prophecy productions/Lopus Lounge standards. Other pieces like the doomy “Devils, Devils Everywhere!” have nice riffs but some very silly passages that quickly reduce the listener’s desire to stay engaged in the music.

After the filler atmospheric piece that breaks up the pace of the album, “Die Kirch ist umbgekehret” is one of two tracks in this release that are well put together and almost justify the time investment put into listening to this release a few times. The song is quite well structure and nicely changes tempo going from furious Black Metal to some spacey atmospheric passages and then back to brutality. This last track provides enough buildup for the spoken intro of “The Hiebner Prophecy”, a song that provides a nice mix of Swedish Death Metal riffs (Grave-style) and the band’s own Pagan/Black Metal strengths.

Filled with solid ideas and some promise, “Niederkunfft” still feels half-baked and yet another ‘almost there’ release for Helrunar. The people behind the band are talented, but they probably should focus on make cohesive songs with all the cool elements well integrated than rather have very similar tracks with a few wow moments thrown sparsely into the mix. If you don’t mind repetitive music, then this release will surely please your ears.

Label: Lopus Lounge

Release: March 3rd, 2015

Genre: Pagan/Black Metal

Country: Germany