Album Review: Folterkammer – Weibermacht

I adore the aesthetic the band are vying for too. Looking at the cover, the track titles and even the lyrics, it’s abundantly clear the band were aiming for a European style, reminiscent of the great concerto halls of Renaissance Italy and France. You can feel the influence of such ideals dripping from their performance, for the operatic vocals aren’t typical to your run-of-the-mill performance, even amongst operatic circles. This is much more bombastic and theatrical in the classical fashion of an opera where it was an actual performance on stage as opposed to merely a lone tenor delivering their vocals. You can envision the band’s stage as strewn with props, smoke machines, background action, a narrative and multiple acts to follow. It’s massively grand but the audience always knows what’s occurring and can follow along without difficulty, even with the lingual differences inherent. There’s also the fact the band appear to sing exclusively in German, whether that be their primary operatic delivery or the more typical blackened, speaking performance. It only continues to cement the immersion Folterkammer provide as you’re sucked completely into their world with not a crack of light to suggest there’s anything other than this performance.

Folterkammer’s tracks are also longer than your typical piece too, but I feel it was necessary for the band to adequately get across the full breadth of what each track could provide us with. Shorter tracks wouldn’t really get the majesty and scope of their sound across. Each track also has some form of opening and ending that only furthers my idea of this being aligned with a European operatic performance where each track seemingly features like an “act” and as each one closes were treated to some bass work or an audio piece or some harpsichord. That extra time helps deepen the immersive element of Weibermacht as it feel continuously less like a band merely playing music, but a thoroughly planned performance and entity of its own accord. The songwriting also benefits from the longer tracks too since the band never finish a track in the same vibe that they begin it in; whether the band start a track with a steadier tempo before closing with something more visceral, or the other way, a track never maintains the same feel for long as the band are deadset on ensuring their music evolves with time.

In conclusion, Weibermacht is an utterly sensational record that has the balls to try something different. Knowing they have guitarist Zachary Ezrin among their ranks, who work is synonymous with Imperial Triumphant and the sender side of extreme metal, I am not surprised with how Folterkammer’s second full length album sounds. This is one of the most unique and captivating albums I’ve heard in some time, and likely will remain in my memory long after this review goes live. There are few comparisons one can make to Weibermacht; it manages to be a thoroughly satisfying black metal record yet still invoke the avant-garde fashion its songwriting vies for. It perfectly embodies the Germanic Expressionism that was so prevalent in the early twentieth century and I can easily imagine this being an alternate soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s own 1927 masterpiece Metropolis, such is the German vibe this record possesses. If Fleshgod Apocalypse is an orchestra, Folterkammer is that European Opera. An exquisitely powerful yet focused album, Weibermacht is an amazing experience.