Herrschaft - Architects of the Humanicide

60%

Previous year I was pleasantly surprised by a French industrial release with a very black edge which went by the name Tamtrum. When I heard about this MCD from Herrschaft, which also hails from France and plays roughly the same style, it immediately grabbed my attention.

The information that came together with this MCD named electro black metal as the style that Herrschaft plays. I would rather name their style just industrial, it’s true that the singer uses high black metal screams, but the guitar riffs that are played seem to come straight from a KMFDM album, especially the opening riff of ‘Apogee’; this gave me a bit of a feeble feeling. Those high black metal screams are by the way awfully distorted, this is quite usual with industrial, but combined with black metal screams this doesn’t produce a pleasant sound.

In ‘Haunting Torture’ Herrschaft manages to create a more sinister, black sound, but still it hasn’t got that great evil vibe what compatriots Tamtrum can produce. In ‘Self Bondage’ another KMFDM rip-off riff passes by, but this time it is compensated with great attractive synths; because of this the song flows really well.

Overall I must say that I was disappointed by this MCD, sometimes it manages to create a good vibe, but too many times we hear just all too common riffs. Lets hope they will work on this in the future.