“DetoNation” marks the first new effort in over a decade by Germany’s ENDSTILLE, the last record coming back in 2013 in the form of the “Kapitulation 2013” full-length. The Ván Records released effort combines both the furious and aggressive with a pall of melancholy, creating an atmosphere of triumph, militancy and desolation, utilizing both fast and moderate tempos to drive the songs. ‘New World Lethargy’ is a proper album opener, serving fast and up-tempo Black Metal with a four-chord progression minor interval main riff in conjunction with a pounding blast beat that creates an atmosphere of immediate tension. ‘Jericho Howls’ opens with the iconic sound of dive-bombing Stukas and features suffocating tremolo-picked melodies and harmonies that drive the track alongside a frontal assault from vocalist Zingultus in conjunction with high-speed blastbeats and doubled vocals, arguably the heaviest and fastest song on all “DetoNation.” ‘Tochnit Aleph’ and ‘Destined To Silence’ slow things down with a mid-tempo approach, with ‘Destined To Silence’ using slower tremolo-picked melodies and minor chord progressions to create an atmosphere of sheer desperation. ‘Vigilante Justice’ is a bit more long-form compared to the previous tracks, at over six minutes in length, more akin to the mid-tempo material and more on the melancholic side thanks to the continued utilization of minor-key riffing, with drums switching between rolling sections of double-bass and sustained blasting. ‘Pro Patria Mori’ serves as a sort of break between the mid-tempo material, serving as a fast aggressive short track that links into another longer six-minute offering in the form of ‘Victorious’, which opens with a clean vocal segment and is laced with various passages of long-running melodic tremolo-picked lines, grinding chord riffs, blastbeats and haunting arpeggios. The title track ‘DetoNation’ is a violent exhibition that invokes the old days of mid-1990’s Black Metal fury and directly competes with ‘Jericho Howls’ for heaviest song on the album. “DetoNation” closes with the crawling eight-minute desperate opus ‘Endstille (Weltkrieg)’, a mostly instrumental piece save for a few segments of spoken word passages throughout the song. The production on “DetoNation” is modernized, with the sensation of all instruments being mixed totally equal. No instrument overpowers one another. The bass guitar is slightly low in the mix, and the bass drums could use a little more push to them. Overall, this is a worthy return after a decade-long hiatus for a band with such a long and storied history as ENDSTILLE. This is sure to please fans of the more modern releases by bands such as MARDUK, DARK FUNERAL or GORGOROTH. For more information on ENDSTILLE, see www.facebook.com/endstille.official, for more on Ván Records, check out www.facebook.com/vanrecords.