Lacrimosa ‎"Angst" CD

Lacrimosa didn't sound like they sound today in their earlier releases. To become the band we all know today they needed to take some steps forward. From album to album Tilo was making progress musically and was becoming more experienced on writing music full of emotions and personal experiences (the emotional depth of his lyrics is really unique and especially poetic). From the very beginning of Lacrimosa the figure of the happy/sad clown (happy smile/sad eyes) was present at their booklets, booklets that are being illustrated by Stelio Diamadopoulos.
"Angst" is their first release, an album written during the period 1990-1991 which indicates the main characteristics of the phenomenon named Lacrimosa. The main characteristics of Lacrimosa, Tilo's passionate and theatrical voice, the dramatic style of the band and the full of emotions compositions are in a primary phase and will be needed some more steps for Lacrimosa to reach this peak of quality, creativity and expressiveness. The compositions are mainly based on the atmosphere that the piano and the keyboards perform and they are not something affected. "Angst" was only the beginning.
The album begins with "Seele in Not" and the church organ's imposing melodies fill the room along with Tilo's eerie and menacing screams from above! The melancholic "Requiem" follows and the heart-rending piano melodies keep you chained into an ocean filled with tears. "Lacrima Mosa" that comes next is a dreamy and peaceful instrumental composition cutting the album in half.
The album continues with the various composition "Der Ketzer" which is filled with different emotions and atmospheres as the song keeps on going. The heavy guitar riffs steadily give their place to some cheerful keyboard melodies and then the church organ evokes along with an ethereal female voice evokes a gloomy devout atmosphere whilst Tilo is always there to fill the song with his unique expressive voice. "Der Letzte Hilfeschrei" follows, a mourning composition with deadly keyboard melodies and Tilo interpreting in a unique way.
The album ends with "Tranen der Existenzlosigkeit", a song based on the keyboards and the piano. The keyboards in combination with the piano perform a dreamy atmosphere. While the song continues the atmosphere becomes more and more melancholic; but the melancholy that you feel is not the depressive one, but a sweet nostalgic one and so ends the album leaving you in your own memories...
"Angst" is a must for all the Lacrimosa fans, but I would do recommend this album to the ones that like the sound that Lacrimosa have today and find out how they began and how they reached their nowadays' quintessence as the years started to pass by.

Lacrimosa's debut album features none of the metal influences which would creep into their music over the years, instead offering a more or less straight-down-the-line darkwave album showing the influence of early Dead Can Dance. This time around founder Tilo Wolff is backed up by the same set of musicians who would help out with the second album, Einsamkeit, though the only one who really stands out is "Eric the Phantom" on viola. In general what we are presented with here are haunting, classical-influenced gothy pieces with a focus on keyboard textures and gloomy atmospheres. In general not one for those who aren't into gothic material, and to be honest it isn't a stellar accomplishment on that front, with excessive repetition of musical ideas betraying a lack of really strong material. If you're really, really into darkwave material it's a reasonable enough listen, but even then it's not likely to earn a spot amongst your favourite albums along these lines.
I don't know,what the situation with Lacrimosa on Archives,but here ,in Ukraine,it is one of the MOST KNOWN bands (not only 'coz Lacrimosa IS NOT PROG AT ALL :-) ).They're Gothic Metal,I wonder what they're doing there. Anyway,thank you for putting them here.I adore L's first 3 CDs,though they're poorly produced & recorded.The drums' sound is EXCACTLY like on my demo!:-)If you like dark & very melancholic music,Lacrimosa is for you.Sometimes thy're sounding like David Lynch's OST!:-)I wonder.why they've change their misic after 94.And the structure of albums is CONSTANT ,beginning from Inferno: 1.An epic 2.A song for a single 3.With female vocald 4.Soft,"metal"-less 5.Another single 6.Another female 7."Metal" track 8.A closing epic There may be some changes,but they're unimportant...Look through,you'll definetely notice the scheme! Highly recommended anyway,but not for Proggers...or not for all Proggers...

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