The first time I heard Nordstahl with their Ragnarok in Berlin I was hooked like a vise. Nordstahl is a cinematic metal project created in Germany, pioneering their own soundscapes, where memory, myth and machinery come crashing together, mixing symphonic metal with an industrial rage and a Norse mythological twist to create their unflinching social commentary. Created out of profound disgust at the culture of indifference and intellectual hypocrisy, the group harnesses the Germanic metal heritage into a brutally driven, mission-oriented power that shakes you to the very core.
Midgards Schlaf is a wake-up call to a blind denying world, the sludgy rhythm and the burnished guitars exploding like an alarm clock in the album. The title cut, Ragnarok in Berlin, comes on with an explosive intensity, industrial drums and grim synths that give the impression of a self-destructive unraveling in a spiritually desolate Berlin. I could sense the sense of urgency in each of the pounding percussion that reflected the madness of contemporary breakdown.
Bifröst brennt with the raging intensity of a broken relationship, isolation; Mjolnir punches with the brute force that challenges our rusted mightiness- the hammer of Thor is unresponsive. It was the emotional knock-out in this that left me wondering about my own reluctance. World serpent Jörmungands Kreis twists and turns around us in its cyclic stagnation, and Lokis Lgen hisses with its false soundscapes, an indictment of a post-truth world that bends the stories to fit its comfort.
The album ends with a haunting dirge, Friggs Falscher Trost, which reveals false comfort as the lullaby of doing nothing, its dirge-like beauty being devastatingly beautiful at the same time. All along the orchestral flourishes are contrasted with the mechanized dissonance, the tension between beauty and decay. Raw German sung in a voice that is filled with emotion, the vocals are a call to confrontation at a gut level. This is more than music, this is a war cry against moral fatigue. The transcendental mix Nordstahl gave me was rattling, inspiring and emotional, and showed me metal is still capable of causing real change. A work of art in the turbulent times.
.jpg)
