ENDSTILLE – Navigator

Although I wasn’t really fascinated by the previous outputs of the ambitious quartet of the Black Metal war-machine ENDSTILLE from Northern Germany, which are called Operation Wintersturm, Frühlingserwachen and Dominanz, I have to annotate that this point of view seems to change after their new release Navigator. Outward, concerning the cover/booklet-artwork, the lyrics and the band’s brutal image, it looks like if these mad battle-fanatics drive the same road as so far. Almost everything deals with one of the most controversial topics, which besides represents the cliché in details: “war”. Directly documented with genuine photographs of the second world-war, ENDSTILLE show the rest of the scene that they take this debatable motto “Black Metal ist Krieg” by Nargaroth’s Kanwulf dramatically seriously in an artful and modern form.
Surprisingly the sound-core of this German legion has experienced a not very striking, but by all means remarkable twist, so Navigator puts forward with uncompromising, pulping mid-tempo killers, which irresistible destroy your auditory perception. Furthermore the band mixes some rough melodies, which got a raw deal the years ago, with a powerful, hyper-blasting Black Metal basis, a fact that especially the third song, which is entitled Navigator as well, demonstrates acoustically. As a result I have also to mention that ENDSTILLE obvious gained a lot of variability and now present a laudable combination between extreme aggression and poignant melancholy. Particularly with regard to the last song Endstille (Leichnam), which seems quite hypnotic, becomes clear that the band isn’t a total specified overspeed blasphemy-troup any more.
But even if these enthusiastic Black Metal-soldiers provide a good album, that includes a further development of their musical creativity in consideration of skillfully changing tempos and offering stirring battle-hymns, in my opinion the “certain something” in their music is missing to keep up with Nordic cult-bands like Marduk or Immortal.