Bethlehem - Schatten aus der Alexander Welt 2CD Review

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2006-02-08 : INFESTER
This should make yer head FUCKIN explode!!

All that need's to be said is..GERMAN's ARE INDEED THE MASTER RACE!!!!!! I AM PROUD TO BE GERMAN!!!!!! AS IS BETHLEHEM!!!!!

This will cause nasa space launche's to crash..use with caution!!

LET THIS ALBUM TAKE YOU AWAY TO YOUR WORLD!!!!!

THE ALBUM COVER WILL TELL YOU RIGHT AWAY WHAT THIS MEAN's..THERE IS ONLY YOU AND YOU!!!!

A MASTERPIECE!!!!!!
2002-08-04 : Matthew : Link
Germany's Bethlehem is infamously known for their anguished, haunting, and suicidal "dark metal" music. What is it about Germany, man? They are all so pissed! After four outstanding releases of purely creepy, angst-ridden, and monstrously gloomy releases, the band unleashes their fifth and most mature release to date, in the way of the double album Schatten aus der Alexander Welt.

In their early years, you would be hard pressed to find a metal band as dark, as eerie, or haunting - their shrill guitars are embellished by a frigid reverb, the vocals ranging from vamypric grumblings to guttural death growls to frenzied shrieking - all of course twice the more exotic and pissed off sounding having poured from the mouths of a few mentally off-balance though brilliant German musicians. Throughout the course of their discography, the band has developed a sound entirely their own, with nods not only to Black, Death or Doom metal but atmospheric Gothic Rock and frenzied Punk as well.

With this latest release, the band merges their varied influences together in a way that is astounding. For the most part, Schatten aus der Alexander Welt is a very starkly beautiful album, with a stronger sense of melody and much less aggression and angst-ridden tangents. Instead, the band's reverberated guitars opt for fluid, murky arpeggios and sad twin guitar harmonies. Rhythmically, these guys are almost crossing over into the Darkwave category, as a drum machine provides most of the drumming on the album. And it is actually pretty danceable! There are parts on this album that remind me of Wolfsheim, as a result of the swayable dance rhythms and the clean German vocals. There is very little screaming or growling on this album at all; instead the vocals opt for a very melodic, smooth, and clear style, giving the world it's first "accessible" Bethlehem release. Still the music is unquestionably dark, gloomy, and troubled, but delivered in a way that highlights the band's superb sense of melody, harmony, and eloquent atmosphere.

Between the songs, bizarre samples and dialogue weave their way into the mix, all of them are very short, no more than 30 or so seconds. The track listing is rather confusing, as there are 66 tracks, but only 9 of them are listed. The weird experimental bits obviously have no title, and the final song is hidden. There is also an entire 2nd CD, which is mostly experimental noise and strange electronic music. Since I got the promotional version from Red Stream, it is a basically a track listing mess and I have no idea what track is what. But they are all good! Ranging from Rammstein like Industrial/Metal explosions to somber, melancholic grace to trip hoppish danceability, the album is all over the place. Sometimes showcasing all of these aforementioned styles in one smoothly flowing track!

There is really something for everyone here - from fans of Das Ich to fansof Type O Negative to fans of darker synth pop. It is somewhat difficult to recommend this album, as there are so many different aspects to it. But honestly, it is a much more Gothic album than a Metal one - the metallic climaxes are limited and rare, with a much more obvious emphasis on melodyand atmosphere. While Bethlehem have definitely taken a bit of a departure from previous material, the sound is still easily identifiable as Bethlehem - those same shadowy guitars and bass lines that worked their way between the band's harsher moments of the past make up the entirety of this CD.

In many ways, it is sad if not a bit frustrating that the people that would probably enjoy this most will mistake Bethlehem as a Black Metal band as a result of their reputation. But I was as shocked as you will be. I was expecting something much heavier, scarier, and intense - instead I was surprised with a dreary, romantic Darkwave masterpiece. I totally love this album - both from the perspective of a fan of the band's early and more foreboding work, and as a Gothic DJ and fan of dark melodic dance music. This is a fantastic album well worth looking into, and if you have yet to hear the band's early work and yearn to be frightened beyond all belief, you can't go wrong with their debut Dark Metal or Dictius Te Necare and S.U.I.Z.I.D.

Track List:
DISC ONE:
1.) Maschinsohn
2.) Somnabulismus In Maschinezimmer 30
3.) Mein Kuss erstickt im Imperativ
4.) Mary Samaels NFB 418
5.) Dunkle, kalte Materie
6.) Das 4. Tier a¦Â den Mutterwitz
7.) Roast, Wahn & tote Gleise
8.) Tod einer Dieselkatze
9.) Aus dunkler Ritze fruchtig¡¯ Wahn

DISC TWO features 11 tracks of experimental/electronic ambient music
performed by various members of the band.

1.) Der Dorsch
2.) Bis Bald
3.) Rote Lampe
4.) Tal
5.) Ni
6.) Nautilus
7.) (Hermann)E
8.) Pentagene
9.) (H & G) Saltatrix
10.) Marzahn
11.) Aeter

Bethlehem is:
Guido Meyer de Volatire ¨C vocals
Olaf Eckerdt ¨C guitars
J¨¹rgen Bartz ¨C bass
Steve Wolz ¨C drums
Reiner Tiedemann ¨C keyboards
Marcus Johannsen ¨C electronics

Bethlehem - Official Site:
http://www.alexanderwelt.org
2002-08-04 : criticaltom : Link
Despite my lack of ability to understand the German language, the atmosphere on this CD brings to mind reminiscences of the Weimar cinema. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, the Weimar cinema was roughly the period between WWI and WWII when such films as Metropolis (Fritz Lang), Nosferatu (Murnau, recently parodied in Shadow of the Vampire), and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were made. Where those films lacked the budgets and the sophisticated technology available to filmmakers today, they made up with visual ingenuity. Thus the Weimar Cinema became the greatest expression of German Expressionism. Could it be, then, that Bethlehem have taken this German art form and melded it with Metal? It seems so. Whatever the case may be, the music is very dark. At times it is soothing and at times it is harsh. It is heavier and much more interesting than gothic, but it really isn’t black metal by my definition, so I think it could best be described as progressive dark metal. As a sort of bonus—or maybe consolation!—the American release includes a bonus disc of just musical soundscapes, themes from the album itself. It itself is over an hour long! I have no doubt that this is a concept album, but it is practically impossible for me to decipher what that is. Whatever it is, it sounds good anyway.
2002-08-04 : seedsofevil : Link
FUCKING WEIRD! Being a German concept album, I have no fucking clue what this is about. But I can tell you this double cd has elements of r&b, ambient sounds, metal and a ton of other madness. If your after something dark and sinister in a very surreal way, check this out. There is also a creepy spoken word intro done backwards in German. This stuff IS rather interesting...even more so with drugs...
2002-08-04 : Daniel Hinds : Link
Naturally, as I sit down to start my reviews for the evening, I would have to place the discs in alphabetical order, leaving me with Bethlehem sitting right on top. The problem isn't that it is a bad or a boring album -far from either - but it is a massive, complex work that is not easily absorbed in one listen or explained in a few words. The last album to strike me as profoundly unique as this one was Ulver's Themes From William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If anything, I think Bethlehem incorporate more styles (and do it more seamlessly), which is really saying something.
First off, this is a two-disc conceptual work and all the lyrics are in German. Not being fluent in that particular language, I will reserve my comments to the highly diverse music that accompanies said words. Disc one features nine cuts, with widely varying intermezzi between each. "Mary Samuels NFB 418" pours out over a restrained trip-hop beat, dripping with dreamy piano melodies, ambient textures, a subtle bassline and intersecting guitar fills. The vocals here are clean and could almost fit any number of German (dark)synthpop outfits. "Tod einer Dieselkatze" has wonderfully building verses and morosely relaxed choruses. And if all that wasn't enough, the album closes with a thirteen-minute clusterufuck of everything that precedes it, moving from experimental and choppy to smoothed out jazzy electronica by the end.

Apparently, the original second disc contained monologues and dialogues in German, so for the American release, the storyline has been interpreted musically. The industrial and experimental electronic elements are much stronger here, with the album taking on a warped IDM feel much of the time. I was kind of dreading this one, expecting a self-indulgent excursion into needless 'weird for weird's sake' territory, but the material here is just as engaging as that on the first CD. The mood morphs from relaxed to disturbing to irritating (track #5, please make it stop!) to almost pleasant.

There is something David Lynchian about Bethlehem's sonic vision - it is madness descending into a nightmare, observed with crystal-clear vision. It is difficult to fully appreciate this album without understanding the words, but from a musical standpoint, Bethlehem have given 'dark metal' a whole new meaning.
2002-07-31 : John Chedsey : Link
Bethlehem has certainly come quite a ways since their early "dark metal" music in the mid-90s. As noted in my review for their 2000 single, Profane Fetmilch lenzt elf krank, Bethlehem has begun edging away from their harsh, grating extreme metal towards a considerably more ear-friendly approach. However, all that has been completely set on its side with Schattens auf der Alexander Welt, a two CD journey through one of the more impressive audio landscapes I've heard in quite some time.

Since my German skills are as strong as my ability to translate Navajo code, I cannot fully report the concept behind this expansive concept album. According to an interview with the band, the album roughly is a journey through a character's world, known as Alexander World, where he meets with a variety of archangels. The story is told in a radio play theme, with occasional radio sound interludes acting as between song interludes. And since I only understand German beer, I can't get any deeper than that brief, nearly useless summation. Needless to say it is the music itself that speaks throughout these two CDs. The two CDs are separated into the standard release, which is disc one, and a reinterpretation through ambient soundscapes on the second disc. The first disc covers a huge amount of musical territory, from death metal to goth to trip-hop rhythms and much, much more. Much of the singing is precisely that: singing, not the soul-quaking shrieking of yesteryear. The calmer moments of the album, especially the warmth and transcendental qualities of "Mary Samaels NFB", are highly impressive, particularly considering how unsettling this band once was. Although a single listen may not thread the album together, successive experiences of this album help make sense of it and it becomes a single entity that requires one to listen in a single sitting, transfixed. The second disc is a considerably more ambient affair, taking the listener through rather deconstructed soundscapes that occasionally are a touch disturbing. However, as a companion to the main CD, the music contained within make it a continuous listen from the first disc to second.

The band's label as described this CD creating a "rare" metal genre. However, this is the type of music that defies the necessity to stuff every single musical creation into a safe category. Rather, Bethlehem has scoured the musical world for influence and come up with a breathtakingly impressive, cohesive piece of work. Most importantly, the seamless quality of the songcrafting helps it avoid sounding like a muddled hodge-podge, which happens far too often with bands exploring a variety of genres of music. This album should appeal to the more adventurous of music listeners who crave a dark, ponderous and rewarding experience.