I think what first attracted me to this record was
the logo. There have been indecipherable logos for as long as there have
been metal bands, but Andra's takes the cake. Looking like some sort of
seventeenth century alchemical equation, scrawled in delicate brushstrokes,
in the handwriting of some sort of madman, with vague hints of a pentagram,
but no hints at all as to what the name of the band might be. Luckily,
the music lives up to the high standards set by the unreadable logo. Truly
fucked, stumbling necro metal, with ultra-distorted guitars, pounding,
barely-in-time drumming, and some of the sickest vocals I have ever heard,
like some sort of demonic Donald Duck squawking wildy over a maelstrom
of metallic mayhem.
Lots of midtempos and one almost rock-ballad sounding
song (don't panic, even on that track any melody or sappiness is rendered
null and void by the maniacal screeching and the speaker shredding production).
There are occasional, German spoken word bits, with atmospheric breaks
and soaring strings (over what sounds to be swordfighting) to break up
the record, but it's never long before the band stumbles back into action,
spitting fire and venom and lurching from riff to riff like some demented
metal beast. And while this is not entirely new (it came out in 1999),
it's new to me and good enough that I figured if I managed to miss it,
you probably did too.
