Germ-Loss

Eisenwald
2012

How about some black metal to go along with Black Friday? Well, this isn't entirely black metal per say, but that would be getting ahead of myself so let's just look at some facts here first. Germ is the solo project of Austere member Tim Yatras (also of Ilium, Nazxul, Woods Of Desolation and Grey Waters). And by solo project that means that since 2003 (when Germ came into being) Tim handles it all-vocals, instruments, etc. Conceived off as a way for Tim to combine all of his loves  (not just black metal, but pop, classical music and electronic music) Germ is a hard act to get a feel for. Really, despite being called black metal the only truly blacked parts as the vocals at times. Well, that and perhaps the overall vibe that, amazingly, comes off as sinister even as it flirts with overtly pop music. If all of the above genres seem like an ill-conceived fit you'd be partly right. At times this mini-album threatens to run itself right off the rails. Sometimes more is not better. Still, it's groups like Germ that make me appreciate the effort of some to move beyond the limited confines of traditional black metal. And, quite honestly, it's not all bad. It's just rather different in a way that trying to wrap your head around it all is a challenge. Since the run time is under 40 minutes it's over with before you know what happened so it isn't as if Tim takes Germ into unwanted territory time-wise. Perhaps with a few more spins this might settle in more for me. For now though it's an album that aims high enough but ultimately where it lands is another guess for another time. 







tim