Der Stürmer "Transcendental Racial Idealism" Cassette

Der Sturmer is a Greek black metal band that has been around since the late 90’s. They easily are one of the most infamous NSBM bands of all time. Their second full-length, A Banner Greater Than Death, is considered to be somewhat of a classic within the NSBM scene and has been praised by a decent amount of black metal fans for it’s blisteringly fast brand of black metal that has been compared to the likes of bands such as Marduk. With that being said, it is not surprising that there would be at least some degree of hype in the black metal scene surrounding the release of the albums follow up, 2011’s Transcendental Racial Idealism. With all this hype one might be wondering if the band managed to crank out another supposedly “great” album and the answer is a resounding no. This album is horrible.

Upon starting up the album, the listener will notice that the riffing style on Transcendental Racial Idealism is, on surface level, pretty similar to that of the band’s back catalogue. The riffs mostly consist of simplistic tremolo picking that is played at high speeds, which is both the album’s main strength and weakness. These riffs on songs such as “The Conqueror than the Saint” and “Like a Thousand Sharpened Blades” sound pretty cool at first, but any bite that they have is greatly let down by the shoddy production job and seemingly endless repetition. The drumming on the album is also an aspect that could have been decent, at the very least, if the production wasn’t so bad. The drums are performed by a guy going by the name Athalwolf and he does what sounds like a competent job with playing blast beats and some double bass over the course of the album, but due to the production the drums can hardly even be heard in the first place. The best way I can describe it is a cymbal clanging in the background while someone slaps a pillow repeatedly. Because of this, the music often sounds like it’s not going anywhere and has no punch whatsoever because the snare sound is so thin. This issue is most obvious during the fast parts of the album that make up like 75% of its runtime. Lastly the vocals, like with all Der Sturmer material, are absolutely awful. They sound kind of like a guy doing an impersonation of a death growl rather than the growl itself and, more often than not, their timing is off, which can be very distracting. Apparently there is also a bassist on this album, but the production is so terrible that it's basically impossible to pick out.

With that being said, I do think that there is a market for this kind of music. White supremacists would surely have a field day with the poorly written mound of racist idiocy that this band calls lyrics. Most bands in this scene seem to put the “message” before the music anyway, so maybe that’s the issue here. As far as the music itself goes, if the listener is into sloppy, raw black metal then they might be able to get into this album, but personally, as a long time black metal fan, I simply don’t understand why anyone serious about music would settle for low quality shit like this. If you want raw NSBM, listen to the first Goatmoon album or something. At least that had good riffs.

Sample:  youtube.com/watch?v=SHwlNoVFyu8