I remember being very excited when I first got hold of this CD. A small label on the back-cover read ‘Martial and cold black metal sung in German by the cream of Norwegian black metal elite’.  Blasphemer and hellhammer may be the cream of NSBM, but the rest of the statement is just pure RUBBISH.

Mind you Welterschafft is not a bad album. But this is simply not black metal. All the essential ingredients that make an appealing black metal recipe are sadly missing. Chunky riffs have replaced ambient solos. The atmosphere is corrupted by razor sharp beats. Phased out barks find favour over dastardly screams. The unpredictable and sinister nature of black metal, the very essence of the genre seems to have been lost. What we have here is an intensely predictable and digital ‘Battle tank’. The body is there but the soul has been vitiated by commercialism.

In spite of this I must admit that the band possesses some brilliant talent. This is proved amply by the sheer technicality of the release. The production is top notch and overall work is super ‘tight’. Songs like and  ‘Unter der Fahne’ and ‘Die Nacht hat Augen’ will surely give your cranial muscles some good exercise. Overall this album might pass off as a good industrial metal release but is about as ‘COLD’ as a July night in Mumbai.