I appreciate modern black metal. The original stuff is not for me at all, but there’s something about a well-polished flame of rage that just works for me. Stepping away from pure, often theatrical, hatred and into such things as emptiness, suffering, frustration—that stuff speaks to me. So when I read that Abseits des Lichts (“Outside of the Light”), the sophomore full-length from the German black metal Grau, lyrically focuses on “pain, emptiness, and the animalistic aspect of the human mind,” well, I was, to put it lightly, intrigued. Proposing a “more modern and complex approach” that mixes black, death, and doom metal, the band has lined up everything I could ask for in my black metal. Do they deliver the goods?
As the aforementioned promo material alludes, Grau does a very good job of blending black and death metal on Abseits des Lichts, incorporating touches of doom here and there to tie the whole together. Two tracks into the album, this dichotomy is on full display. “Einnerung” is the album opener, and, after a brief but effective intro, descends upon the listener with huge tremolos, blast beats, and M.K.’s vicious vocal assault. It works well, but so does the follower. “Niemy” opens with a sudden drop in tempo; the song feels closer to death-doom than black metal, despite the absolute assault M.B’s drums launch midway through. It’s a slower, more measured track that maintains the backdrop of black metal in a more immediate way. At first glance, these tracks may feel out of place next to each other, but there’s a beauty in Abseits des Lichts in that it all works anyway.
That beauty really lies in the atmosphere of the album; throughout, Grau craft bleak, angry, and, rarely, moving melodies that link each song together to form a cohesive album regardless of the stylistic shifts from song to song. It’s everywhere—in the adventurous black metal feast of “Fiebertraum,” the moody death metal ravaging of “Ohnmacht,” and the aforementioned assault of “Einnerung.” Everywhere you look, there’s a familiarity to Abseits des Lichts, a clear sense that this is one album, crafted under one idea, and everything is working together to perpetuate it. In this sense, the album performs extremely well; cathartic, familiar, and strong.
The main trouble I have with the album is really that the atmosphere, production, and mood are so prevalent that it winds up feeling overlong at 51 minutes. There are clear attempts to mitigate this, in the distant cleans in “Fraß,” the existence of interlude track “Wildnis,” and the album’s beautiful outro (“Outro”)—but in addition to being largely in the back half of the album, these moments also appear infrequently. The album’s production does a great job at emphasizing each instrument, but the songwriting is both too varied and not varied enough at once. There’s always a lot going on, but by the end of the album, despite the strength of “Fraß” as an individual song, it feels like more of the same. The feeling never fully shifts or wavers—as I said earlier, Grau does an excellent job of blending styles!
So on Abseits des Lichts, Grau come across as experts of their own music; this is an album that chiefly does one thing very well. Across the album, Grau crafts a thick, oppressive blanket of angry, bleak, and ferocious black metal. If, like me, that sounds like your thing, there is a lot to like here. I’ll look forward to the follow-up, and if I’m hoping now that there’ll be a little more nuance on it, that isn’t likely to stop me from returning to this release for some catharsis on a frustrating day.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tragedy Productions
Websites: grau-band.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/grau.blackmetal
Releases Worldwide: December 1st, 2023
