1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing, unique and beautiful German dark metal., May 21, 2006
This review is from: Mein Weg (Audio CD)
Well, this is not what I expected. Last time I heard Bethlehem, which I must admit was many years ago, they played dark and noisy black metal. I guess I expected more of the same for "Mein Weg", but man was I wrong! This can still be categorized as dark metal, but it's definitely not raw and the remnants of black metal are all but gone. This caught me completely off-guard, but I found it intriguing immediately.
Bethlehem has really concentrated on writing good songs instead of relying on atmosphere and the results are excellent. There are so many memorable riffs in every track that stick in my head for hours and the speed and depth of tracks on the album contain a lot of variety that make every listen a new experience. Injections of keyboards, variations in vocal techniques (all in German) and some truly fantastic guitar melodies keep me coming back for more over and over again. Of particular note are the vocals. From a death metal like growl right through to high quality cleanly sung choruses, this guy is plain excellent and always captivating.
If you want a good example of where this band is at, listen to "Allegoria". It starts off as a beautiful piano piece, which is met by a crunchy rock beat, which is in turn layered by an exquisite guitar melody. After a while the band kick into a heavy riff and the vocalist gets down and dirty, only for the chorus to be cleanly sung. All this, and we haven't even reached the 3rd minute yet. Add to this the piano interlude and further brutality to finish things off and we've got a damn fine track filled with variety and wide-ranging emotions, which never sounds like the band are just throwing together sections.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what the last 26 minute finishing track sounds like. There are many excellent sections in this track, but it really feels like Bethlehem just chucked all the riffs and melodies that were left over into an overlong finale.
This is pretty much the only complaint I can come up with though as "Mein Weg" is one of the best albums I've heard in recent times. I truly hope Bethlehem continue down this path in future, as it is both unique and thoroughly enjoyable.
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