Thränenkind
The Elk

When you are dealing with an evil you can see, you manage to fight it, at most avoid it... But when you can't see it, what can you do but fear it and flee from it? When the spores began to spread in the air, no one could see them; you could only notice the consequences: rabid, insane people with fiery red eyes that shone in the night like embers, creatures moving in jerky motions, blindly launching themselves at the poor survivors, who at best were slaughtered or devoured, at worst... Well, they became infected too.
Since the onset of the contagion, from the initial spread of the spores (first) and the proliferation of the infection (later), months had already passed: law enforcement opted to level entire parts of the cities, ghettoizing the few survivors, in the futile attempt to eradicate the disease which had already taken hold of everyone, and there was no way to contain it. "We are already dead," the girl kept telling herself, "only we're still too stupid to realize it." Yet she was different; she had been infected, but she did not transform like the others. The infection did not proliferate within her body but remained there, contained in that small patch of skin on her arm, a sort of burn, nothing more. Some even believed, among the survivors, that she was a healthy carrier of the infection, a sort of vaccine that could theoretically help humanity if only it were extracted in the most appropriate ways. In fact, this was the reason she was traveling across North America with that man she had met only a few weeks earlier: so shadowy and mysterious, so solitary yet strangely attached to her, he was holding her close as one holds a small flame so it doesn't extinguish on a stormy night. He truly considered her the embodiment of hope and a lifeline from madness and fear, an island in a sea of horror.
She had begun to trust that man, growing fonder of him with each passing day, he was almost the father she had lost (and in all likelihood, he saw in her the daughter he lost some time ago).
The seasons passed in their course, and the beautiful summer sun seemed not to care that beneath it people were slaughtering and tearing each other's lives apart... And the birds' chirping did not halt when screams of those dying or the piercing cries of some infected overlapped it. The two walked through skeletons of cities once rich and alive, moving like ghosts who no longer recognize their homes, and every encounter with non-hostile people, survivors like them, always ended by tearing away a piece more of their heart and soul: they never had time to get to know someone before being betrayed, separated to follow other paths, or simply died. In short, they felt like the last ones left, but they did not lose hope and kept moving forward.
Then one day something terrible happened, the man had to choose whether to sacrifice the girl in the name of (possible?) salvation for humanity or sacrifice humanity for the deep attachment he felt towards the girl, now become his daughter. It’s true, the man also thought that they were all already dead, but at that moment, he thought perhaps it wouldn’t matter much to him if humanity continued to undermine itself and shred itself with its own hands: he had found his happiness, and she probably felt the same, they were in fact a bit less dead than the others, and that was enough to (survive)live a little better.

Strange creatures, these Thränenkind. Germans, among their ranks are individuals who appear in bands like Heretoir, Agrypnie, and Bonjour Tristesse (and those familiar with these groups know their genre belongs to the post-black metal that has been quite popular recently). Yet, Our fellows do not stop at merely replaying the work of said groups but add elements from depressive (rock and metal), to (post)hardcore and post-rock, creating an interesting musical solution that, if at first hits the listener well, there's the "risk" it grows in favor with each subsequent listening.
"The Elk" is a passionate album, emotionally very intense, not annihilating but, on the contrary, at times almost loaded with hope, in which the story of two brothers participating in their father's funeral is depicted in black and white, a journey that seems almost more mental than physical, a sort of climax that seems to lead them from suffering and despair permeating the first parts of the work to a sense of freedom and relief. From various quarters, the use of vocals in the album is criticized, many feel that the vocal performance provided by the singer is not suited to the songs, but I would like to defend it. The singing is a scream that works well both in the blacker parts and in the more "melodic" ones, directly deriving from post-rock or post-hardcore, maybe not reaching peaks of expressiveness and dynamism, but it performs impeccably, acting as a bridge between parts where echoes of the Katatonia of the late Nineties/early Two Thousands are heard, now of bands like Lantlos and Amesoeurs, now groups like Fall Of Efrafa or The Elijah, and finally even Explosions in the Sky and the most intimate and acoustic post-rock.

In short, it is very hard indeed to understand where to place Thränenkind, it's not very immediate to think of a group that unites influences from the aforementioned bands, but in light of this curious and intriguing proposal I feel compelled to recommend this album unreservedly, deeming it deserving of far more attention than it is currently receiving.