Band:	Porta Nigra
Album:	Schöpfungswut
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	January 17, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Die Kosmiker
02. Das Rad Des Ixion
03. Die Augen Des Basilisken
04. Die Entweihung Von Freya
05. Unser Weg Nach Elysium
06. Schöpfungswut

Calling this "avant-garde" black metal is a bit of a stretch. Calling it "eclectic" black metal? I'm already twirling my imaginary mustache. But that's a stretch too.

Now admittedly this is a record that will disappoint a lot of people who have been fans of Porta Nigra since 2012's Fin De Siècle, as they already were when 2015's Kaiserschnitt dropped by. But only just now coming to know Porta Nigra, I don't have as much an attachment to their previous sound and can appreciate Schöpfungswut for what it is, which also seems to have worked with Kaiserschnitt.

So before listening to this, know that most of the avant-garde tendencies of Fin De Siècle have been dropped, instead mostly replaced by second-wave black metal. Accept the fact and adjust your expectations. Porta Nigra do sound less avant-garde in comparison to their previous stuff, but compare it to most similar stuff out there, Schöpfungswut is still pretty diverse both in how the sound is approached in vocal performances, and there are some ways that they try to play with the sound. The more conventional black metal approach here does often move in a very melodic direction that tries to create a pretty dark atmosphere.

Thing aren't pink though, as the best thing about the record is still the dual vocal performance, also in German, a language known for not sounding very friendly, but aside from the vocals some of the guitar work and mostly all of the drumming falls pretty flat. The vocal performance almost fooled me that this is better than it is, so much so that I constantly had to rewrite the first part of the review. But the more I listen to it, the more I think how much more can I listen to just tremolo picking and generic blasts, hoping that they will eventually do something interesting with this sound. Heck, now that I do compare it to most of the stuff out there, it doesn't really sound diverse at all. And that's not even comparing it to their previous stuff. And without even reaching the 50 minutes mark, none of the around-8-minutes-long songs really feel like they justify their length.

That are obviously attempts outside of the vocal performance to make this work, like blending the repetitive drumming and tremolo picking with some arpeggios and soloing, and constantly changing between the same two sections, but even those feel generic and fall flat after a while. Whenever there is a section that gives me some hope, it's actually quite sad, knowing that this could've actually been a pretty good record. Honestly this pretty much fails both as a Porta Nigra and as a traditional black metal one.