Sturmtiger "Transcendent Warfare" CD

8 page booklet with art and lyrics.

Sturmtiger! The word sounds so familiar yet I could barely recall anything that associates me with that name other than the famous German tank from World War II. It took me a while to remember the band by that name, which I discovered through a friend of mine who gave me some of his oldest records, one of them being the 7” vinyl of Atomic Hammer EP by a death/black metal band Sturmtiger from Denmark. Although I haven’t been able to check out the band’s entire discography, I decided to give it another go with their second full-length Transcendent Warfare, released June 25th, 2023 via Demented Omen of Masochism. As willing as I was to check it out, little did I know what I would await on the battlefields…
The album unloads all the cannons with the instrumental two-minute opener track “Forced March”, which immediately warns you that this album is going to be gunfire and shrapnel from start to finish. If total war is what you came looking for on this album, then the second track “Armoured Spearhead” kicks in and clearly states “what you seek is what you get!”. The absolute beast of a song is “Imperium” which can only be described as “blitzkrieg” from start to finish. The musical output mostly consists of blast beat drumming with war-like guitar riffs and growling guttural vocals, but executed perfectly where everything feels in place. The death-thrashing riffs are definitely one of this album’s highlights, especially because each one of them is an absolute banger and is so heavy that it shakes the earth. As I was completely immersed into the majestic madness of this album, I kept saying that this album is pure Bolt Thrower worship all the way through. I should note that this doesn’t just have to do with the riffs, drums, vocals or the lyrical themes of war, but the overall energy and the artistic expression successfully represent the terrors and philosophies of war, and in so many ways it actually managed to throw me back to the times when I discovered and fell in love with “Realm of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness)”. The stylistic consistency of Transcendent Warfare is definitely one of its strongest points, especially because every track is top notch and at no point does the album start to feel weak or slowing down. Some of the strongest tracks on this album would definitely be “Armoured Spearhead”, “Imperium”, “War is Eternal” and “Universal Eradicator”, although I think that it’s unnecessary to name individual tracks since the album absolutely dominates from one track to another. My only issue that I have with this album is that it’s really short, because its total length of 27 minutes and 7 seconds which brings this absolute delight to a sudden conclusion. I still believe the band could have squeezed in at least two more songs to fill up the runtime, but because this album is so strong and maniacal, I think that you can easily ignore this smaller issue. The sound production does a great job at providing a raw and heavy guitar tone in a very oldschool death metal style, which was wonderfully combined in the entire mix along with the drums and the vocals.
Transcendent Warfare really caught me by surprise and I must say that I was absolutely astonished with the raw energy that Sturmtiger transcended on this album. I must say that this is by far one of the heaviest albums of the year and an absolute must hear for fans of Truppensturm, Bolt Thrower and 1914. I can guarantee that this album is an “all killer no filler” and it wonderfully wrecks the living battlefield from start to finish.

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