ANDRAS
Iron Way
(Einheit Produktionen)
44:59min

There are a handful of bands which, summarizing all their releases (and in the case of ANDRAS we are talking about 5 full CDs plus several demo / live tapes), constantly recreating their style during their career. If I think about them nearly a decade ago my first connection was the song ‘Die Vorboten’ (from their debut "Die Rückkehr der dunklen Krieger") with the sickest vocals ever (no further comments about the overall quality of this CD) but these pure Black Metal times are gone. The most important fact is that ANDRAS anno 2008 know how to create good Metal songs with heart and soul apart from the fact that an exact musical definition is difficult. The 8 songs plus intro / outro are more or less a mixture of Heavy Pagan Metal and symphonic Black Metal, maybe old VINTERSORG could be a reference point. "Iron Way" is a release with two faces, the first handful of songs are pure Pagan Metal mainly through the very remarkable heathen vocals from singer Ecthelion but with the song ‘Infested’ in the middle of "Iron Way" it seems that the band opened a small door to older times and the Black Metal roots (through darker vocals, drums and keys) are shining through. But I really like this small course correction during this album because the album is getting another perspective during the 45 minutes and parallels with BORKNAGAR are getting obvious on one side on the musical scale (for sure because the ANDRAS shouter could be the unknown German brother of Mr.Vintersorg) on the other hand because both bands has left the Black Metal waters to conquer other shores. Overall a solid release after 3 years of silence. www.andras.de.vu, www.einheit-produktionen.de

Matthias Auch

Matthias Auch

Related reviews / interviews:
ANDRAS - ...Of Old Wisdom (Andi Bauer)

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