Der Gerwelt is a Satanic death/black metal project of Alex from Tales Of Darknord and some guy who calls himself Aarbreck, with another TOD member Shirl as a session musician, who helps out with bass duties and drum programming. You have to give the guys credit for largely avoiding any references to TOD. Only on "In Battle Against Christ" could I detect a few similarities to that band. The music is mostly medium tempo, pretty raw sounding but treated with occasional melodic fills. The vocals are standard black metal screams but well done, and the drum machine lends a mechanical feel to the music. Although now and then you may run into riffs that sound a bit too familiar, for the most part the songs are decent and presentable pieces, especially "Godless Truth," "Dead Illusions," and "Darkness and Hate." On the latter the band even employed a little bit of keyboards, not to mention some lovely lyrics like "We'll kill you fucking Jesus Christ/We're ready for the last and bloody fight."

The biggest and most immediate problem, however, which prevents "Nordlich Sturm" from being anything more than a passable release is the production. It is way too dry and lifeless, thus drastically hindering the perception of the music. A fuller and more expansive sound would easily do more justice for the material. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The guitars, for example, are too thin and rigid and, in conjunction with the drum machine, make the songs sound more monotonous than they actually are, especially on a first listen. As a result, one has to spend more time with these songs and listen much more attentively than usual in order to catch up with what's going on.

Final verdict: not a bad effort but could be much better were it not for the inferior production.

© 2001 boris