Band:	Mitternacht
Album:	The Raise Of The Secret Cities
Style:	Ambient black metal
Website:	http://listen.to/mitternacht
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Undercraft

01. The Sighting Of The City
02. Fall And Rise.
03. The Apparition.
04. Synthetic Fallen Angel.
05. The Tide Of Rotten Souls.
06. Lux Fare, The Light Carrier.
07. The Raise Of The Secret Cities

Curwenius makes it up (or at least he tries)

After the terrible experience that was listening the Heulend Horn Cd, we got another project from the same compositor of the aftermentioned album, Friedrich Curwenius.
This time the themes aren't Viking or deal with any real mythology, the story is explained by a narration as the Cd goes by, so think of this as one of those Cd-books where you don't have to read a thing, cool isn't?

The music is quite good I must say, at times this sounds like Summoning, the atmosphere that the keyboards creates is quite compelling, the drumming is another important element, I suppose is programmed but is very versatile, and is not present all the time, like when the narrator tells of a battle or a dramatic point in the history, the drum goes insane with the blast beats adding so much depth to the music.

This could be a fantastic, compelling Cd if it wasn't for the awful narrations. The guy who does the narrations (Curwenius I assume) is a terrible narrator, no emotions or depth whatsoever, totally stoic, lifeless narration. Not to mention that his English pronunciation is quite poor, It feels like if Ricardo Montalbán was doing the narration. Leaving the sad note behind, I might add that the artwork is very well executed, very attractive to the eyes.

If Curwenius leaves the narration department and leaves the job to a professional, I could assure you that Mitternacht could become big, but until then you'll get a great ambient Cd with dreadful narrations. It seems that there's always a catch with Curwenius music. Needless to say, this is way much better than Heulend Horn.