ALBUM REVIEW: Heimkehr – Minas Morgul

After a four year radio silence, German Pagans MINAS MORGUL have returned with a newly revamped line-up featuring Robse Dahn (previously of EQUILIBRIUM) in order to release their seventh full length offering Heimkehr. Meaning ‘homecoming’ in German, it seems as though the band are expecting the release to herald a triumphant return, but with a six albums already behind them, will they be able to hold momentum through their seventh or will they be starting to run out of ideas?

Heimkehr begins promisingly enough, with a mystical prologue that sets an evocative mood before dropping straight into the title track. Unfortunately, this is where problems begin to arise. Heimkehr is a fairly standard slice of melodic pagan/black metal fare, with adequate production and a recurring motif of chuggy riffs backed by double kick and growls. On paper, this is a perfectly acceptable formula, however in practice here it seems pretty bland and uninspired. There is nothing particularly vibrant or fresh about it, no apparent new ground trodden.

As Heimkehr progresses this problem seems to solidify. Throughout the album’s 45-minute runtime there are some entertaining ideas and promising moments, such as the savage tremolo of the opening of Niedergang, or the blackened throb of riffs laced throughout Teufel. Overall, the songs never seem to really go anywhere, lacking the sonic gut-punch which some of these techniques MINAS MORGUL are deploying can pack. Overwhelmingly it seems as though there is nothing on display that we haven’t heard before, oftentimes in a more exciting and engaging manner.

As we progress through the middle point of the album and towards its end, this metal-by-numbers approach becomes somewhat tedious, perhaps even frustrating. The back half of Heimkehr seems to showcase a broader set of influences than the first, such as big melodic gang vocals cutting through V.F. à la EMPEROR’s Inno A Satana, or the slightly jauntier, folk-tinged yet still utterly beige Totenschiff, it appears to be an exercise in throwing enough stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately, in this case, while an awful lot does come through, the wall remains remarkably clean. This theme continues until the album fades out, leaving the listener feeling both unsatisfied and struggling to remember anything that happened in the preceding 45 minutes.

To describe Heimkehr as bad outright would not be doing it justice. Clearly the musicians involved are competent, there is a very nice polish put to it through the studio mix and it has some genuinely stirring atmospheric parts, however they feel completely uninspired and this results in the album feeling abysmally forgettable. The best way to describe this album is that it seems entirely comprised of stuff you would hear drifting from an adjacent stage at a festival while you wander around stalls or grab food. Not good enough to grab your attention and pull you in, nor bad enough to pull focus through morbid curiosity and certainly not something you’re going to remember after you leave. It is in a kind of limbo, inoffensive and unengaging. This in a way is the worst fate of all, because people will always remember both the good and the bad, but rarely will they remember the mundane.

Rating: 5/10

Heimkehr is out now via Trollzorn.

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