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Menhir 'Thuringia' (Ars Metalli) My initial reaction to this album was a slight disappointment due to the fact that I wanted to hear a second part of their previous 'Buchonia' MCD, but instead was greeted by something quite different. While 'Buchonia' sounded very pastoral, laid back and almost entirely acoustic (due to the electric guitar being very low in the mix), newest CD from this German Pagans presents much more aggressive and rawer sound. Using a metaphor, I can say that if Buchonia consisted of something sounding like songs of Alpine shepherds, then 'Thuringia' greets us with songs of Ancient Germanic people being sung through times of war and rare peaceful moments. I don't know if guys in Menhir intentionally tried to sound old school, but whatever their intention was this is the kind of sound you will find on this album, although it is still very clear and powerful. As I said, I was kinda disappointed with it at first, but if you give it some time it will eventually grow on you, and you will be able to discover all the beauty lurking beneath the biting guitars and thunderous drums. It still has a lot of those nice folksy melodies and chants, they are just not as obvious as they used to be in the past. As an added bonus you get another example of great CD packaging (Ars Metalli never ceases to amaze me) as well as a pretty cool cover of Bathory's 'Woman of Dark Desires' (now you get the idea where all this raw sound is coming from!).
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Menhir 'Thuringia'
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