ANGST

The first release of Lacrimosa presents us with a very symphonic album, but do not expect great musical arrangements. The structure of the music is very simple (several times boring), charged with intense negative mood. In this matter, this band is some sort of symphonic RED HOUSE PAINTERS.

The album starts with a church organ, leading to a disturbing and repetitive sort of "guitar scream". So, this must be the angst that gave the name of the album. Because you are not going to be able to see it anymore. The boring organ riff persists to the end of the 9:28 minutes of music. Requiem introduces the piano. More again, doses of depressing playing, like the end of everything was near, and there was nothing else to do. Lacrima Mosa is an instrumental, the best achieved song of the album. Here, a sad but this time beautiful piano playing is added to the depressive mood. So it is not boring (ore as boring) as the previous ones. Der Ketzer opens with a Pope Christmas wish, "peace in the heart of all men", introducing to electric guitar. Like elsewhere, simple arrangements and vulgar melody. The bass follows the simple riff showed by the guitar. Nothing new on Der Letzte Hilfescherei, except the regular cardiac rhythm all over the music. The last music has more sad piano and keyboards, sad melody and ends with church chorus.

Well, if you are in a depressive all-most suicide state, this album is the perfect for you since you can see you're not the only one who suffers like that, and that there's still hope. Otherwise, this album little or even nothing adds to the history of progressive rock.

My rate: 3/10

I don't know,what the situation with Lacrimosa on Archives,but here ,in Ukraine,it is one of the MOST KNOWN bands (not only 'coz Lacrimosa IS NOT PROG AT ALL :-) ).They're Gothic Metal,I wonder what they're doing there. Anyway,thank you for putting them here.I adore L's first 3 CDs,though they're poorly produced & recorded.The drums' sound is EXCACTLY like on my demo!:-)If you like dark & very melancholic music,Lacrimosa is for you.Sometimes thy're sounding like David Lynch's OST!:-)I wonder.why they've change their misic after 94.And the structure of albums is CONSTANT ,beginning from Inferno: 1.An epic 2.A song for a single 3.With female vocald 4.Soft,"metal"-less 5.Another single 6.Another female 7."Metal" track 8.A closing epic There may be some changes,but they're unimportant...Look through,you'll definetely notice the scheme! Highly recommended anyway,but not for Proggers...or not for all Proggers...

A cheap, amateur, and bad produced album... Full with good music!

I'm sure that Tilo Wolff heared the Devil Dolls albums before introducing himself in the world of dark music... Because the influence of the Mr. Doctor's band is just ovious. The same taste for the symphonic arrangement, with some classical mood, and mixed with a pair of heavy riffs. And not just the Lacrimosa's music is based in Devil Doll... Also the Wolff's retro-look reminds me to the image of Mr. Doctor himself. It's just the same attempt to rescue an obscure role token from some gothic novel, under the influence of the vanguard films and pictures made in the first half of the 20th century...

But the Devil Doll's influence is even more evident in later Lacrimosa's albums, the better produced ones... In Angst this influence is diminished by the weak production, because Tilo Wolff made everything here with some keyboard, guitars, sound effects, computers... And a good mixer! The result is an album wich sounds everything except natural. The sound is very synthethized, the drums are just empty rythms made by computer, the guitars sound weak, the voice's volume is not really well accomplished... But this flawed sound is a bit forgivable, because the quality of the music included here is high.

The gothic and dark style influenced by Devil Doll is very effective, and the weak sound make it even creepier and sometimes scary... In the contrary of Devil Doll, the style of Tilo Wolff is more songs oriented, far from the long concepts this great band made. The songs are sometimes a bit repetitive and boring, but the most of the time the hypnotic rythms and fantastic dark melodies make you have a good time listening this album. And this album is not Progressive Metal... It's not even metal. Maybe just symphonic gothic music with some guitars and drums, but the mood of the album is peaceful, sad and desperate... But not metal in amy terms. And progressive? Well, maybe, but not the kind of progressive music you will find in the usual bands included in ProgArchives.

Another important fact of this music are the lyrics, sung very properly by the Tilo Wolff's deep voice... Very introspective, talking about suicide, religion, loneliness... And like the title says, about fear. I have the luck to speak some german, so I can understand most of the lyrics... And I like them! They fit perfectly in the osbscurity of the music... Because they are even darker than the music!

Best songs: Seele in Not (good opening, with rythmic keyboards), Der Ketzer (song about the Pope and against the christian religion... Maybe the most variated and harder song of the album) and Der letze Hilfeschrei (great lyrics, and perfect music to give the sense of loneliness and desperation the song wants to give)

Conclusion: even with the weak sound and production, all very amateru made by Tilo Wolff, the music of this album is really enjoyable if you are into the depressive concepts, gothic music and symphonic dark ambients. Not metal, and maybe not progressive... But interensting and origininal music nevertheless, under the influence of another dark band: Devil Doll, but without reaching the great quality and majestic arrangements of the Mr.Doctor's band. Lacrimosa would easily surpase this album later... But Angst has some memorable tracks, and every fan of the band should hear it.

My rating: **1/2

Lacrimosa's debut album features none of the metal influences which would creep into their music over the years, instead offering a more or less straight-down-the-line darkwave album showing the influence of early Dead Can Dance. This time around founder Tilo Wolff is backed up by the same set of musicians who would help out with the second album, Einsamkeit, though the only one who really stands out is "Eric the Phantom" on viola. In general what we are presented with here are haunting, classical-influenced gothy pieces with a focus on keyboard textures and gloomy atmospheres. In general not one for those who aren't into gothic material, and to be honest it isn't a stellar accomplishment on that front, with excessive repetition of musical ideas betraying a lack of really strong material. If you're really, really into darkwave material it's a reasonable enough listen, but even then it's not likely to earn a spot amongst your favourite albums along these lines.