Review by Raphaël on December 12, 2024.

When I saw the magnificent cover art by Daniel Bechthold, in the style of Biró Mihály (1886 - 1948), considered as the founder of political poster art, I was immediately intrigued. The artwork depicts a German general putting people in a meat-grinder, which is fundamentally what war is, using normal people to advance whatever goals and ambitions of the few in power. In the case of WW1, the unquenchable thirst of capital owners for never-ending increasing profit. Some Russian dude wrote a good book about that!

Anyway, bands that use war as its main source of inspiration can be overly cheesy and just end up glorifying it. Although there is quite a bit of cheese all over this album (in the form of earworm melodies), thankfully Kanonenfieber is not one of those bands! Kanonenfieber is but one of the many projects of multi-instrumentalist, Noise and it's one of his more "accessible" projects, blending black and death but, in their more melodic forms. The melodies on Die Urkatastrophe will take you on a journey, through a wide range of emotions, all surrounding heartbreaking stories of war and its devastating effects. So, if you're still wondering, no, it absolutely does not glorify war, it's more of a warning. Thankfully our leaders are following the important lessons of history… At least Kanonenfieber understands!

Their bancamp page sums it well: "As with its predecessor, Kanonenfieber's second album Die Urkatastrophe is based on factual reports, letters and original documents from the surviving and deceased soldiers from the First World War. Its intent is not to glorify, because there is no glory in war. Everyone loses – their lives, their souls, their humanity. This album is intended to commemorate the countless victims of WWI. War is often depicted in an abstract way, through numbers and statistics."

Back to the music, there is a mournful beauty about the melodies Noise is crafting. Even if I do not speak any German, the music makes you understand, it's full of images. On 'Lviv Zu Lemberg', the main melody is both epic and conveys pure sadness, so I know it must be a heroic tale about a battle won but incredibly costly, where many souls where lost. The chorus of 'Der Maulwurf' is a pure sing along earworm, reminding me of those songs miners used to sing while going to work, at least, in movies. On 'Panzerhenker', there is huge and loud chugs that sounds like cannon fire, which makes sense because the song is talking about a battle in which tanks were heavily used. Also, the song title translates to tank slayer, so everything makes sense. 'Ausblutungsschlacht' is about the longest and costliest battle in human history. It's a slower song, full of atmosphere, heaviness and that epic sadness so characteristic of Kanonenfieber, ending with a soft piano. The album ends with a soft acoustic guitar folk song, filled with sadness but also hope, as the war finally ends.

The album sounds phenomenal, with the production sounding huge and clean, with every instruments perfectly balanced in the mix. This album is a great discovery, for fans of melodic and blackened death metal, it's yet another band added to my list of bands I need to see live!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Felix on September 23, 2024.

Ah, another album about the Great War. How original. The artwork teaches us that the Reich wanted to kill each and every foe. Of course, it refers to the Western Front, Verdun, and the other places where so many young men died a “patriotic” and completely senseless death. The Germans played their part in this in the person of Erich von Falkenhayn and others, but so did the Western Allies, if I'm not mistaken. On a side note, before Germany declared mobilization, the Russians and the French (albeit only just an hour ahead of the Germans) were already on their way to the future battlefields. The cover of “Die Urkatastrophe” ignores this, but okay, it’s just art and does not need to be historically true.

Lyric-wise, Kanonenfieber also focuses on the German side. Maybe they want to show the Teutonic attitude, this suicidal fascination for a war that dominated at the first days of the war. Now they are historically correct, but this misguided mindset was no German phenomenon as well. So let’s come to the music. Kanonenfieber plays a kind of industrial black metal with wannabe catchy choruses (“Der Maulwurf”) and I promise you, I have rarely heard more boring and meaningless black (death) metal. Maybe the industrial approach is a good match with the historical fact that World War I was the first mechanized, completely dehumanized war in the history of mankind. If this was the intention, it makes sense, but this does not mean that Kanonenfieber’s style awakens even the slightest emotions in me. The computerized hammering of the quasi-opener “Menschenmühle” just sucks and the thought “black metal without atmosphere is no black metal at all” comes to my mind. (And I also don’t think that the album really dishes up death metal – if this is the case, it is far away from my Bolt Thrower / Grave / Vomitory understanding of this style.) The guitar lines are just as pathetic. Fortunately, a few exceptions confirm the norm. “Lviv to Lemberg” is a track that surprises with lively and coherent guitar work. Anyway, the song is too long, its silent break makes the track’s intensity implode. “Gott mit der Kavallarie” presents a promising guitar line at the beginning, a really good one and perhaps the best of the entire album. The fanfare-like chorus is based on it, that’s cool, but once again the slower part in the middle of the song devalues the number to a certain degree.

In terms of sound quality, you can represent every opinion. For example this one: oh, it’s so powerful, so clear, violent, and heavy. A legitimate point of view, doubtlessly. But I just feel attacked by soulless sterility. Especially the voice lacks authenticity and charisma, in particular during the first songs. As the album progresses, things get slightly better or I just get used to it, who knows. One thing is for sure, these sometimes death metal affine Eisregen-vocals-for-beginners which meet Rammstein-on-extreme-metal may have their appeal for some. I beg your pardon, I just find it infantile and seeking for cheap shock effects. And I have another problem with the full-length: the longer it lasts, the more monotony gains the upper hand. Despite a few good moments, individuality is not the most striking feature of the single songs, to say it politely. The album would have benefited from a length of 40 minutes because for the meager amount of variety that the formation offers, the disc is about 10 minutes too long. But maybe monotony is a good thing here because the worst track is the totally different non-metal closer that wants to be emotional. Too bad, it is just useless and its German lyrics remain superficial and weak.

Summing up, World War I is a very interesting topic. It surely makes sense to read Clark’s “The Sleepwalkers” or McMeekin’s “July 1914. Countdown to War”. I could recommend more books, but due to the fact that this is a music-related archive, another recommendation is Minenwerfer’s “Feuerwalze”. I know, their mix of historical samples and extreme music is not too far away from “Die Urkatastrophe” (at least the album’s name hits the mark), but simply better. Not to mention the title track of Saxon’s “Call to Arms”. This is really a song that pays a worthy tribute to the soldiers of both sides who died for nothing.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Review by Michael on September 2, 2024.

Since Lemmy sang about the horror in the trenches of the Great War, young guys bleeding to death, no matter on which side they fought for on “1916”, World War I became more and more popular in the metal scene. Nowadays countless bands write about this horrendous tragedy and probably one of the door openers for the next catastrophe, World War II. Kanonenfieber was founded in 2020 in Bavaria, Germany, and is going to release their second regular studio album in September. Their debut Menschenmühle (“Human Mill”) was already a very harsh and brutal black metal album with smart and interesting lyrics but they have evolved since 2020.

Die Urkatastrophe (“The Primal Catastrophe”) is both – more accessible but also slightly more uncompromising. First of all, it is interesting that they (like the band already did on their debut) use German speech samples from 1914 – 1918. This gives the songs a very special flair and somehow you can almost feel the mood the soldiers felt back then. But of course, with having all the deaths and war insanity in mind you always feel this bitterness remembering that all this destruction and hatred was just for nothing. The lyrics are all kept in German and everybody who knows this language knows that it isn't the softest one. It is more harsh and sounds unkind and this aspect matches really perfectly to the songs. Apropos hatred and bitterness – this is projected into the music very well, especially through the vocals Noise is using. In every song you have the feeling that he is full of hatred and bitterness. Let's take 'Menschenmühle' as a first example. The chorus is nagged and sounds slightly psychopathic and this expresses very well what the lyrics mean:

“Deutschland, Deutschland Kaiserreich (Germany, Germany imperial)
Kriegessucht und Wahnkrankheit, (addiciton to war and delusional illness)
Deutschland, Deutschland Vaterland (Germany, Germany fatherland)
Mordessucht im Wahnverstand“ (addiction to murder in delusional illness)

Although the songs are all really good and there is no filler in sight, there are two tracks that are a little bit more outstanding and got me instantly. The first one is a calmer one which turns out almost epic and heroic….if there weren't the bitter lyrics. That one is 'Waffenbrüder' which tells the story of two German soldiers who have known each other since their childhood and go to the front in France. So the story goes on, one of them gets wounded on the battlefield and has to go to the hospital. “Fortunately” he returns after some weeks and goes back into battle. But I guess that you can imagine how the story for both of them ends… just like the song very sad. And then we have 'Gott Mit Der Kavallerie' (“God With The Cavalry”) which is a very catchy and thrash-orientated song. Distorted vocals give the song also some death metal flair. But when the chorus sets in, this is a really heavy inferno. Musically it is an equivalent to a galloping cavalry. But yet again, there is no space here for any happiness because when the German soldiers meet the Belgian artillery, it doesn't turn into anything good for either one of them or their horses. Underlined this gets through the machine gun-like drumming in that part.

You'll probably find more of your personal favorites on the album very quickly, since as I said, all songs are top-notch. I would say that Die Urkatastrophe is a really good, well-produced album with interesting and thoughtful lyrics and it puts the horrors of war into good words and music and makes it a little bit easier to put yourself into this dark era of the 20th century. This one is recommendable for everybody who likes bands like 1914, Panzerfaust, or Minenwerfer because they don't only go lyrically but also musically in the same direction.

Rating: 9 out of 10