Heaven Shall Burn – Wanderer
The songs on «Wanderer» are like punches that hit the heart and mind with precision. They do not forgive. Heaven Shall Burn are the uncompromising conscience.
Wanderer starts off with a short, eerie intro. A threatening mood creeps out of the darkness. A storm is brewing.
I will not follow this misleading,
No tears will drown this fire in my eyes
Heaven Shall Burn leave no room for doubt: The Loss of Fury is more than a small storm. A hurricane is about to rage. And this premonition immediately becomes a reality: Bring War Back Home finally darkens the sky. Lightning flashes like strobes. The sheer force of this wall of sound relentlessly sweeps you away. The brute force of the verses is contrasted only with a captivating melody that lasts just long enough to grasp the fascination of this spectacle. Heaven Shall Burn indulge in navel-gazing, torn apart by the eternal question: is it worth fighting?
It is the big theme of Wanderer: change must come from within. The idea of the album is summarised in the booklet:
He seeks distance to change his perspective
In freedom and seclusion, he arranges his thoughts
Strength and power he regains in nature's shielding bosom
In vivid silence and familiar remoteness, he can listen to his heart
Yet he experienced that from no wayfare you return the same
He knows that nothing will change until you change yourself
And therefore, every revolutionary is a wanderer.
There is little time to deal with the profound, personal questions that the band presents us with. With Passage Of The Crane, they almost make us believe that the storm has already passed. But Heaven Shall Burn have become such an established institution in the European metal cosmos that this assumption would be pure naivety. Although Passage Of The Crane allows considerably more space for harmony than Bring War Back Home, Marcus Bischoff's growl has lost none of its aggressiveness.
Inside Out
They Shall Not Pass – Heaven Shall Burn are now raging unstoppably. The song starts off loudly, but the actual explosion follows shortly afterwards, transforming the hurricane into a fiery inferno. And it wouldn't be Heaven Shall Burn if a beacon didn't follow sooner or later. The band changes the focus from inside to outside:
See the Blackshirts are marching
But this time they will not brave the storm
Shoulder to shoulder we stand
This is a sombre season but my heart is filled with confidence
Believe me today, they shall not pass this way
The song refers to the battle of London's Cable Street on 4 October 1936. 3000 supporters of the British Union of Fascists marched through the East End. At the same time, 300,000 counter-demonstrators gathered and blocked the fascists' march. They shouted, «They shall not pass!»
However, the song is not just a nice history lesson. Today, right-wing extremists are marching again—more boldly than ever. Heaven Shall Burn reminds us harshly that history is in danger of repeating itself.
Downshifter is the first single taken from Wanderer. The thunderclaps go straight to the pit of the stomach. The hurricane reaches its first climax. An exemplary piece for the sound of Heaven Shall Burn. The instruments form impenetrable rows. The arrangement overwhelms until a melody peels out of the crushing force in the chorus.
In the Eye of the Storm
The winds become chaotic, constantly changing direction and speed. And a small letter makes all the difference: Prey To God instead of «pray to God». The unleashed force rages against blind obedience in the name of religious institutions.
Lying prophets, fallen hollows, untruthful revelators
Your fear of hell will drag you into a godless abyss
Heaven Shall Burn got some prominent support for this thundering statement. Marcus Bischoff and George «Corpsegrinder» Fisher, frontman of Cannibal Corpse, take turns whipping up Prey To God into an ultimate death metal hellfire.
The storm is still raging, but with My Heart Is My Compass—a short instrumental—we have arrived at the eye of the storm. It is only a brief moment of calm. Save Me lets a wall of clouds rush towards us again.
Apocalypse and Genocide
Suddenly, there is an eerie silence. A violin counter crackles us to the true apocalypse and the absolute climax of Wanderer. Corium is the end product of a meltdown, a devilish material created by human hands.
The storm that Heaven Shall Burn has unleashed is no longer natural: the melody fluoresces dangerously, eats into the ear canal like acid and leaves a lasting scar. The band angrily storms and pushes against the irresponsibility of nuclear energy, even against blind technology bondage:
No reason to see, into cataclysmic silence they still preach
In the name of progression, evocation of a certain nemesis
Standstill in the name of progression, we lost control
When Hunters Will Be Hunted, a song against hunting, appeared on the Veto album three years ago, emotions ran high among conservative politicians and hunting associations. But that will probably be nothing compared to what Extermination Order could trigger:
Trotha!
His name was Trotha, never forgive, never forget!
Who was Trotha?
Lothar von Trotha was a Prussian officer. At the beginning of the 20th century, he issued an ‘extermination order’ that provided the basis for the genocide of the Herero people in present-day Namibia. Trotha's troops suppressed the uprising of the native tribe. The Hereros fled into the almost waterless Omaheke Desert. The Germans sealed off the desert and even chased the refugees away from the rare waterholes. Up to 85,000 Herero perished—shot, beaten and left to die of thirst.
It was only in July of this year that Germany officially recognised the genocide for the first time – albeit without apologising or taking any other action.
No Conciliatory End
After this indictment, the band turns its gaze back to itself. A River Of Crimson is a blood-red invocation of its own strength. Heaven Shall Burn emphatically asserts its inner convictions.
The hurricane subsides with the sluggish The Cry Of Mankind, a cover of My Dying Bride. The storm passes, revealing a world in ruins and ashes. Aðalbjörn Tryggvason of Solstafir piously suffers alongside Bischoff's rumbling. It is not a conciliatory end.
With lust, you're kicking mankind to death
We live and die without hope
You tramp us down in a river of death
As I stand here now, my heart is black
Dynamite and Empathy
No one expected a happy ending. Wanderer mixes anger, will and self-doubt to create a detonating stick of emotional dynamite. The songs are like punches, hitting the heart and mind. They do not forgive. Heaven Shall Burn are the uncompromising conscience. They skillfully avoid preachy morals with direct, courageous honesty. In doing so, the band is surrounded by an aura of bipolarity: on the one hand, they point out the evil of humanity, but on the other hand, it is precisely through this unsparing confrontation that they become good.
The result of this duality is empathy, which goes far beyond the musical, and it is ultimately also the reason for the magnificence of Wanderer. Listening to Heaven Shall Burn remains a humanistic confession.
Heaven Shall Burn – Wanderer
Release: 16/09/2016
- The Loss of Fury
- Bring War Back Home
- Passage Of The Crane
- They Shall Not Pass
- Downshifter
- Prey To God
- My Heart Is My Compass
- Save Me
- Corium
- Extermination Order
- A River Of Crimson
- The Cry Of Mankind
