Orplid
Greifenherz

And who would have ever thought that one day we would find Orplid grappling with electric guitars and heavily charged drum machines? This, at least, is the shock that the resounding “Luzifer”, the intense opening track of the latest studio effort “Greifenherz”, released at the end of 2008, gives us.

Let’s take a step back. We had left the wicked German duo with the excellent “Sterbender Satyr” of 2006, the last piece of a trilogy of works that, with inspiration and a good dose of creativity, had known how to reinterpret a musical genre with decidedly rigid schemes, such as apocalyptic folk. Today with “Greifenherz”, they leave and double down: they leave, abandoning a winning, tested formula, consciously choosing to change their nature, to embrace a more canonically industrial sound, mechanical, painted with heavy gothic tones; they double down, however, in terms of courage, challenging their fans once again, a portion of whom will inevitably be puzzled by the stylistic turn taken by the renowned team of Uwe Nolte/Frank Machau.

The signs of such a change were already detectable in the previous work, which had known how to insert industrial loops and electronic beats into the arcane and poetic folk advocated by them since the beginning. But thinking of the current upheaval of the sound at that time was prohibitive, if not conceiving it as a desperate, suicidal choice. Yet it happened, but the challenge was embraced with head held high, and in some respects, the match was won, though not without a few bandages.

We then return to the earth-shattering “Luzifer”, introduced by the angelic female voices of the brief “Falken-Eid I”: the roar of an electric guitar attacks us, while military-like percussions and the clatter of an ultra-distorted bass dictate the times of the boldest piece ever written by them. Reminding us that we are still listening to an Orplid album is the hoarse and dark voice of Frank Machau: Machau’s harsh and passionate lyricism remains one of the few threads linking “Greifenherz” to the band’s past, in addition, of course, to the exaggerated romanticism and the poignant and rebellious atmospheres that have always been the band’s trademark.

The acoustic guitar is almost obliterated, only to be exhumed in a couple of negligible moments; in parallel, the electronic component sketched in the previous effort is expanded: the industrial mud thus extends like an oil spill, also overwhelming what good had been built in the past. In a renewal process of such scale, after all, it was inevitable not to lose something; and indeed something has been lost. But in the end, perhaps one can only agree with them that such a choice has ultimately been successful and well thought-out: in their honesty and the desire to offer their fans a different product, new to the palate and at the same time of quality, without however renouncing those conceptual axioms that have always supported the band’s poetry.

Sure, the industrial version of Orplid may appear to us at times trivial, clumsy in their movements, although they don’t handle the machines too bad, despite being new to the craft: Orplid are still good pupils, they seem to learn quickly, and the technical baggage at their disposal, though limited, proves to be more than suitable to support their indestructible poetry made of tears and blood; a baggage sufficient also for putting together a respectable and still personal work, so much so that we will hardly find terms of comparison to delegate the definition of the harsh gothic machinations sponsored by them today.

So we can be reassured: the massive use of pompous orchestrations, sampled sounds, and martial pace percussions does not magically turn Orplid into Blutharsch, whereas it's nicer to think of hypothetical Massive Attack in full Wagnerian overdose accompanied by a German version of Nick Cave with serious constipation problems.

Jokes aside, in “Des Sperbers Geheimnis” the two former apocalyptic minstrels seem to be playing at being Portishead (with commendable, albeit at times laughable results, as they move in trip-hop environments with the same grace as an elephant in a china shop). The impression given to the work is, however, heterogeneous, and throughout the listen, we will come across sumptuous blows with a strong epic characterization in perfect Orplid style (the splendid “Myrmidonenklage”), as well as in more introverted moments characterized by a more intimate melancholy (“Schwertgesang”, or the conclusive “Falken-Eid II”, where among other things, the acoustic vein of the early albums is recovered). Noteworthy, in this case as well, is the vocal contribution of the evil Sandra Fink, whose harsh throat shines in a couple of episodes (“Totenesche” and “Traum von Blashyrkh”, both quite powerful in their progression).

Sure, what I will never understand is how a certain fringe of the dark universe insists on resorting to solutions of such gaudiness that border on the ridiculous, in often plastic and approximate sounds, that would like to weave symphonic preciousness when in reality, nothing is regurgitated from the machines but baroque trinkets of modest level. But this is also part of the game, it’s a bit like wanting to be Dead Can Dance with a small keyboard given by uncle at Christmas, or re-interpreting Wagner armed with karaoke: it’s the fundamental limit that characterizes the work of those who do not have means at the level of their arrogance.

Orplid, despite everything, still save themselves, because their intentions remain nevertheless good, while their inspiration in songwriting does not seem too affected by the paradigm shift attempted in this latest album of theirs. Even though we, confident, remain waiting for the worthy successor to that Nachtliche Junger which to this day remains their unsurpassed masterpiece.