Orplid
Sterbender Satyr

After a masterpiece of immense proportions like "Nachtliche Junger," what can one expect from a breakthrough band like Orplid, reaching their third full-length album?

Generally, the third album is the step of consecration, and “Sterbender Satyr” overall confirms expectations: certainly not on par with the phenomenal predecessor, yet it delivers a band in splendid form, deeply inspired, firmly focused on their artistic vision. A band, we might add, in search of artistic immortality, translated into a stylistic evolution capable of opening new avenues for experimentation without compromising a well-defined and indissoluble identity, a heritage that would be foolish and harmful to squander.

This work from 2006 keeps intact the typical characteristics of the sound of the German duo: Orplid continues to tread the paths of a romantic and passionate neo-folk sung in their native language. But where the perpetuation of their formula, though winning, might tire the most discerning palates, we find them engaged in maneuvers that lead to a more heavy use of machines and synthesizers, at the expense of the more acoustic component, which still remains crucial in the overall sound economy.

If the initial pair, “Der Letzte Ikaride”/“Auf deine Lider senk ich Schlummer” confirms (in small part, as these are very brief pieces) what was well-served by the formidable predecessor, a significant change of course is already found in the immediately following tracks: “Die Seherin”, sung by a “diamondized” Sandra Fink, and “Parzivals Traum”, an evocative environmental interlude, lead directly beyond the boundaries of the canonical folk ballad always championed by them. A greater use of electronics seems rather to be the card played in this round by Uwe Nolte and Frank Machau.

The true highlight of the album confirms it for us, “Amils Abendgebet”: the track, while not giving up on the baroque elements of an acoustic guitar and Machau's desolate singing, is marked in its progression by harsh industrial beats and rests on sound carpets as black as pitch. The neo-folk of Orplid loses in part the monumentality that had characterized it until yesterday and decides to plunge even further into the heart of the night, donning the guise of sounds dirty and heavy as lead, wearing an even darker and harsher armor than in the past, crawling in the mud of murky emotions, decadent visions, and painful realizations.

It is certainly not a step back; on the contrary, it highlights the class and inspiration of an ensemble that, though engaging in solutions certainly not innovative, is capable of stirring the listener's emotions, abstracting them, disorienting them, dragging them into mysterious and unreal places, as if suspended in a dimension made of darkness, ghosts, emotions, remote and untouched eras.

When the same elements are found in the subsequent, equally thrilling, “Erster Frost”, we finally have a clear understanding of the rough path the two have decided to take: that of an industrial folk, as rugged as it is ethereal, that knows how to perfectly embed acoustic instrumentation in the meshes of an electronic dimension with a dark, ritualistic pace. A choice that will weigh on the future of the band, which will later prefer to lean towards a "mechanized" and more aggressively martial horizon, losing along the way the magic of an ancestral folk that shone so vividly in the first three albums.

The final glimpse of the work already begins to pave the way to this type of evolution, stringing together a series of tracks with strong symphonic connotations, already orphaned of the acoustic guitar, but still capable of enchanting with the evocative charm that the desolate floating of the synthesizers arouses clashing with the anguished recitations in German (innumerable references to late 19th-century romantic literature).

The series is interrupted only by an unusual interlude of "carefreeness" (a word to be handled with caution!): “Sang am Abend”, with its dreamy keyboard intertwinings, insistent rhythms, and guitar phrasing, seems to reconnect to that thread of the “playful” dark tradition that certainly points to bands like The Cure and Mission.

The rest, as they say, is solemnity, pathos, drama: everything one can and must expect from an Orplid album. And like every Orplid album, “Sterbender Satyr” is an engaging journey through the paths of the soul, through the most hidden and invincible passions of man, among lights (few) and shadows (many), as only the skilled cantors Nolte and Machau know (and have known) how to do.