Endstille ends ten years of silence.
Since their previous album in 2013, the German band has obviously played live, but despite an announcement in 2015, nothing has been released. In 2023, Lars Wachtfels (guitar, Tauthr), Cruor (bass, Diabolisches Werk, Tauthr, Dysangelium), Mayhemic Destructor (drums, Tauthr) and Zingultus (vocals, Desecration, Graupel, Morast, Graven) sign with Ván Records for the release of DetoNation, their ninth album.
New World Lethargy immediately plunges us into the aggressive martial Black Metal we’ve been missing. Raucous screams and dissonant harmonics unite to reinforce the solid base before a melancholy melody comes in, allowing the band to let us breathe before picking up again, leading us to Jericho Howls and its introductive sample, on which the guitar is already expressing itself. The track is slightly more ethereal than its predecessor, with its intoxicating harmonies, but the band is still as violent as it was ten years ago, as evidenced by the uncompromising riffs on Tochnit Aleph and its chilled approach, where the steady rhythm moves at a good pace. Accelerations are a perfect match for the musicians’ punching power, and they once again grab us by the throat with the suffocating Destined to Silence, which conscientiously rolls over us, letting a few more heady, unhealthy leads join the march. Vigilante Justice will let the musicians adopt slightly gentler patterns, especially thanks to its length, more conducive to the icy harmonics found between two eruptions of fury, while Pro Patria Mori returns to the Old School aggressive sound as hell, striking without warning, whatever the means, accompanied by morbid screams. The band slows down again for Victorious, a relatively haunting composition in which the vocal parts appear like spectres on a devastated battlefield, eventually to be machine-gunned by DetoNation, the eponymous track, which returns to the purest devastation thanks to its thunderous tones. The album as usual closes with its longest track, letting Endstille (Weltkrieg) offer a sampled voice an almost soothing, intoxicating rhythm, though a ghostly howl emerges, marking a revitalization of the riffs until the cataclysm comes to an end.
Whether Endstille‘s silence was long, their return is all the more triumphant. The band hasn’t lost its flame, whether in the most virulent aggressive parts, or in the coolest and most ethereal riffs. DetoNation is the worthy successor to their discography.
95/100