Thursday 5 October 2023

Zerschöpfung by Vlimmer (2023) - Music Album Review


'Zerschöpfung'
(apparently a combination of German words for exhaustion and destruction) is the latest album that Berlin based musician Alexander Donat has put out under his Vlimmer moniker. Over nine tracks of despondent gloom another musical voyage is undertaken. 

I had been putting off listening to this new album for a few weeks for no real reason. On the plus side it meant I listened to this more than I might have. The music here is pretty great, with me wondering at times if this was the very best that Vlimmer has ever sounded. Tracks like 'Teerritt', 'Platzwort', and 'Fataideal' were so darn good to listen to. As always, I may not know what the words mean, but you can feel so much emotion with the way the lyrics are sung. This is a mournful journey into darkness, best exemplified with third track 'Makks'.
The eighties style roadtrip synth is in full effect throughout the album, after the fifty second intro instrumental 'Losig'. The almost sinister off-kilter sound regularly comes back in throughout the album, but the songs don't lose anything from the blend of vocals and pounding synth music. Penultimate track, the slow and droning 'Todesangst' is the biggest deviation from the formula used throughout the rest of the album, but it still feels shorter than its near eight minute run time would suggest.

As is always painfully obvious with my music album reviews on The Rotting Zombie, I really do not have a way of translating my thoughts on music into words. The whole of 'Zerschöpfung' has a unified sound that captures the sound of bleak loss perfectly. It seems somewhat traditional to say this, but there really wasn't a bad track on the whole album. Something to listen to on your own, in the dark late at night, this album is yet another great entry.

SCORE:

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