(Andy Synn dons his black mask and his bullet belt to get gnarly with the new album from Traktat)
Some people say that you shouldn’t judge a book – or, in this case, an album – by its cover.
But when said cover depicts a single knife, rendered in rich, bloody red, on a dark, crimson-tinged background… well, let’s face it, you know things are about to get real.
Clocking in at just over thirty-four minutes, Dogmatic Accusations, the debut album from Bremen-based terror-trio Traktat offers nine tracks (well, seven, plus an intro and outro) of lean, mean Black Metal, stripped down to its raw, primal essence, which wear both their passion – and their politics – out on their sleeve.
With titles like “From Blinded Wisdom to Generic Ghouls” and “Subdue the Filthy Pride of History” it’s clear that Traktat aren’t here to make friends or pull any punches, and their abject opposition to any form of nationalism or fascism – influenced as much by their own country’s history as it is by the band’s Punk roots – is as vital a part of their identity as their biting, buzzing guitars and howling banshee vocals.
And while for the most part the album – which also includes the likes of the cruelly catchy “Prism of a Darkened Moon”, the ramshackle, thrashy riffs and blasting, bare-bones drumming of “The Majestic Uttering” and the gloomy, grimy grooves of “Subtle Racist Consequences” – opt for a gnarly, give-no-fucks, take-no-prisoners approach akin to an even rougher, crustier version of Woe or Wiegedood (to pull two names at random), the band also aren’t afraid to throw in a couple of surprises either.
In particular, the album’s outstanding nine-minute centrepiece, “Fight All Symbols of Disgust”, finds the group pushing the envelope at both of the most extreme ends of their sound, juxtaposing some of the darkest, moodiest, moments on the entire album against an increasingly intense array of scalding guitars and scathing vocals, balancing atmospheric artistry with excoriating extremity in a way which hints at more ambitious and expansive things in the band’s future, while “Gott Ist Widerlegt under der Teufel Nicht” expands the group’s morose melodic palette that little bit more (erring towards DSBM in places).
They’re not reinventing the wheel or shifting the paradigm (or whatever the appropriate buzz-word is these days) by any means, but there’s no question that they’ve poured every ounce of their blood, sweat, and tears – along with their rage, sorrow, and fears – into the music, and I’m hoping that at least some of you will find Dogmatic Accusations just as compelling, and just as cathartic, as I do because of that.