Die Saat ‎"Der Schlachten Tribut" CD

Folk black metal band from Thuringia, Germany. Founded in 1994 and split-up sometime after the release of the third album "Wir laden zum Feste".

Having heard 'Wir Laden Zum Feste' before this one, this ends up sounding like a bigger step backwards than it probably is. It's kind of unfair, I mean, 'Wir Laden Zum Feste' was only one of the best black/folk albums ever released, which tends to make its predecessors unable to stand up to it. But even then I have some complaints about this release which, while good, just cannot in any way measure up to the band's final album.
For one, the drum programming on this is weak. There's no way around it. The programming is much more stilted and simple than it is on 'Wir Laden Zum Feste', and the samples chosen are weak and very obviously fake. It's easy to listen to 'Wir Laden Zum Feste' and be taken in so much by the music that the fact that the drums are programmed barely even enters your mind; that's not the case here where it's obvious from the first note. Tangentially related is the production, which is thin and cloudy, with vocals pushed far into the background and lacking the sort of bass presence and clarity that would define the final album.
But enough of comparing this to its younger brother. 'Der Schlachten Tribut' is certainly a good album; Die Saat's songwriting quality can't be easily diminished by a lack of versatility in programming or robust production. The band's style, though, is certainly still in an embryonic state. Die Saat plays a heavily symphonic and folk-influenced style of black metal, heavy on the keys and on this album female vocals, with rhythm guitars often relegated to a background role in the manner of early Nokturnal Mortum. The songs on 'Der Schlachten Tribut' tend to be a little bit awkward, suffering from a minor case of Opethitis, with odd, sudden transitions tending to mar otherwise excellent passages.
The good thing about 'Der Schlachten Tribut' is that the band's style is still essentially intact. No one writes riffs quite like Die Saat; the intensely German style occasionally brings Eisregen to mind but otherwise stands on its own, and the band's usage of symphonic effects is almost universally tasteful despite what could have been a catastrophic failure given the rather cheap production. The delivery of this is much choppier than 'Wir Laden Zum Feste'; tracks of otherwise pure black metal will be very suddenly broken by pure folk passages, and long intros of declarative vocals and synths are frequently present. This actually gives it a bit of charm it otherwise lacked; if 'Wir Laden Zum Feste' was the million-dollar production, this has an endearingly amateurish quality about it which functions well with its generally solid songwriting.
If you for some reason can only acquire one Die Saat album, 'Wir Laden Zum Feste' is absolutely the way to go, but if you liked that one there's really no reason not to get this one as well. Fans of the band's final work will almost certainly enjoy this one as well as so much of what makes this band so remarkable is perfectly intact here, albeit in a more primitive form. Really the real tragedy is that this band only produced three albums before its demise, so you should really get all you can of what is there.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...