Weighty stuff. A three track EP, centred around the recurrence and power in nature of the number ‘3’ , and taking as it’s major influence the works of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer… Ladies and gentlemen, German metallers Sweeping Death are not looking to beat Steel Panther at their own game…
Luckily, the band have come up with some eminently listenable heavy metal on this Extended Player; you don’t need a PhD to enjoy the superior vocalisation of Elias Witzigmann or the grinding guitars of Simon Bertl and Markus Heilmeier, for instance. Nor, indeed do you need an understanding of what Schopenhauer thought about music – although I’m sure he would have been a big metal fan had he been alive today, as the great composer Gustav Mahler considered the philosopher to have a profound understanding of the music of the spheres. So clearly Slipknot would have been a big hit…
But enough of this high-minded levity. You want to know whether you can bang your head to Sweeping Death, right? Well, they might be a bit too complicated for fans of basic, good-time heavy metal, true, but if more considered names like, say, Dissection (musically) or even Metal Church at their proggiest get you hot under the collar then there’s a fair chance you’ll find plenty to enjoy within Tristesse’s nineteen minute running time. Opening track The World As Will is probably the best of the three, holding the attention effortlessly over seven and a bit music as the band swoop through the prog metal playbook with precision and power. As noted, Witzigmann is quite a singer, and he puts in a truly splendid performance on this song.
The violin break on this track is quite sublime, breaking the composition up masterfully and setting up the rousing lead break perfectly thanks to a rousing percussive accompaniment from drummer Tobias Kasper. Kasper also provides the slightly gothic piano playing that rounds out the track. Piano playing drummers? I wasn’t spinning you any lines when I alluded to this band’s superior musicianship earlier…
The other two tracks don’t quite reach the levels of excellence set by The World As Will, but there’s no denying that this is very good progressive metal indeed overall, and well worth a listen whether you want to grapple with the concepts involved or not.
Tristesse releases on September 9th.
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