Review TOTENGOTT “Beyond the Veil”

Despite the German band name, Totengott is a band from Spain. The guys formed in 2013 and started out as a Celtic Frost cover band. The first demo featured covers of the might metal veterans before the band started working on their own material, which was revealed on their second demo.

The debut album saw the light of day a year later and with ‘Beyond the Veil’ the third full-length album is on its way. The band recorded a total of seven songs and they are well worth listening to.

The roots of Totengott are obvious. Tom G. Warrior and Celtic Frost provided the blueprint for the sound of the three Spaniards. Already the opener sets a clear frame for the album and its source of inspiration. The guitars and Jose Enrique Saavedra’s lead vocals are very close to the original, but the music of Totengott is more than just a copy of their idols.

What bursts out of the boxes is wild, raw and has a hellish vibe. Despite relying on a good sound, the album still has a certain savagery that continues with the second track of the album. Entering the realms of doom, Totengott sprays a monochrome and dark spirit in slo-mo tempo before ‘Marrow of the Soul’ shifts gears again.

While the first half of the album offers some pretty good metal, it is the bottom half of the tracklist that raises the bar even higher, starting with the title track. “Beyond the Veil” comes in two parts.

“Mirror Of Doom” is the first chapter and it is a dramatic start. Totentgott create a lot of atmospherethat makes the song stand out from the other tracks of the album and we are facing more of a hybrid of songs and intro. This first part brings you to “Necromancer” which is the counterpart to “Mirrors of Doom”. Loud and roaring, that’s what this song builds on. With this level of versatility we can say that the band are steering their ship in a good direction.

The guys hit the strings hard and their reinterpretation of the Celtic Frost sound has a hellish charm.
The summary of everything heard, condensed in one song, is the closer called “The Golden Crest”. In 13 minutes the band delivers an excellent summary of all their trademarks, starting with some mass-like spoken words. Later on Totengott build up atmosphere and burning heat. The riffs erupt like slowly floating lava, fascinating and mesmerising at the same time. With some twists and variations the song still has enough variation built in, while the basic pattern remains very much the same throughout.

Totengott have delivered a fine album with a hellish vibe. This is the sound of Radio 666 bringing hellish music to your home. Instead of the blazing sun of Spain, it’s the heat of hellfire that you get from the three Spaniards, and watch out that you don’t get burned.