Release Date: 5 June 2016
Label: Northern Silence Productions

By Thomas
I’ve always been a fan of genre cross-overs especially when the result of combining different styles creates something that is much more than just the sum of its parts. And Firtan are getting very close to this with their EP “Innenwelt” (German for “Inside Worlds”). So I won’t put any genre labels to their music. Or maybe I will, and call it “Dark Metal 2.0”.

Firtan take what style elements they need to create their interpretation of modern atmospheric extreme metal and combine them into two impressive songs with a total runtime of 17 minutes. Calm acoustic parts supported by male choirs are broken off by blast beats and groovy riffs, which in turn are fading into haunting keyboards followed by melodic guitar solos. It’s a wild mix, but it works most of the time, as Firtan manage to meld all these elements seamlessly into each other.
The vocals are great too, with the full spectrum between clean singing, raspy whispers and all-out shrieking present to express the varying degrees of nihilism thrown at us.

Variety within the songs is fairly high, occasionally too high, which may be the only point of criticism. Several sequences are a little too jumpy to enable full immersion into the uncanny soundscapes presented to us.

Firtan display an impressive skill in crossing the boundaries between genres with this EP, that also has a very high production quality. Let’s hope it’s being followed up soon by a full-length album of similar strength.

Rating: 8/10
Tracklist
01 – Innenschatten
02 – Im Licht meiner Sonne