Rattenfänger – Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum

Intrigued from the very first minute! Some members of one of my favorite Black Metal bands, Drudkh, decided to make a Death Metal album. The top division of the “Ukraine Black Metal Association” is present on this one as the labels (ex-) Hate Forest, Blood of Kingu and Astrofaes are flying all over the place! One could expect some atmospheric kind of Death Metal, but they decided to go traditional, plain and mostly midtempo Death Metal with lots of Doom parts. Still there are some keys are being used to create an atmosphere. It’s not exactly the same, but the first two albums of Aeternus could create such atmosphere as well. For the purists this is one fine album you don’t really hear a lot these days. Mastermind Roman Saenko and co. must have Hellhammer and Celtic Frost in mind while composing these tracks. Hence the occasionally “Ugh!” in some of the Latin-written tracks. I do realize this is not for everyone due the massiveness, but if you enjoy some Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Winter (massive Doom parts) and Aeternus (dark atmosphere), Rattenfänger can be an interesting band for you to follow. (Ricardo)