CD review, Jan 10. Siegfried – Nibelung (Napalm Records)

These Austrian Battle Metal nutters, all dressed up as extras from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, specialise in a fairly typical mixture of well played, apparently epic, goth Metal that seems to be so popular these days. They’ve been going since 1998 and sing about apparently sing about the Norse mythology called Nibelung. Themes aside, musically speaking I find that as soon as the Rammstein type Germanic vocals come in, the clichéd female operatic emoting, or the widdly keyboard breaks, any lyrical depth is lost. Being in German doesn’t help my understanding much either, but that’s no criticism. The vague air of sweeping Metal isn’t too bad, but the general feel of Monty Python-esque European mentalism is just a little too theatrical for my liking. These guys do this stuff very well and maybe it’d make more sense to an aficionado of the style, or a German speaker, but it all seems like a mishmash of different sections and styles, moving from one to the next. I can’t find any continuity outside of constant change. I guess it’s cool if people like this stuff, but I can’t find much I like in it, and plenty I don’t.