Die Apokalyptischen Reiter has been around for a while steadily building a loyal fan base with their brand of melodic extreme metal. Formed in 1995 the band started out playing a death thrash variant with some folk influences but over time the death metal influences have given way to a clean and melodic heavy metal feel. The music is usually complex with a wide variety of influences but always very catchy.

2008 sees the band release their highly anticipated (at least for me) seventh album Licht and this is some fantastic fist pumping, head banging metal. The basic framework for the songs has moved from the death metal of old to a classic melodic heavy metal feel that is closer to the epic keyboard friendly power metal that Germany loves but at the same time has enough bite and thrash attitude in the songs to make it a bit more than just your average power metal band.

Stand out tracks include the rousing album opener Es wird schlimmer, the anthemic Wir sind das Licht, the bittersweet balladry of Nach der Ebbe, the slightly electronica flavoured Ein Lichtlein and the superb album closer Ich Suche. There’s also something about the German language that seems to lend itself really well to heavy metal. They might be singing about picking daisies on their farm or lost love or raping dead babies but when they do it in German, it just screams metal!

The songs are all of a uniformly high quality and melody is the chief ingredient in the songs along with a memorable vocal line that had me singing along more often than not. At the same time, the songs are all quite complex and layered with the bands various influences. At the same time, the variety of influences that the band has never makes Licht seem like a disjointed mess. It’s all integrated very nicely into the song writing and folk, electronica, death, thrash and heavy metal all come together to create a fine bunch of songs and probably the band’s best album since 2003s All You Need is Love.

The melodic inclinations of the band have never been higher and there is a feel, like already mentioned, of epic power metal with keyboards so Licht may not be for everyone but if you like your heavy metal epic, brave and just a bit cheesy then you’ll have a lot of fun with Licht. 



Label - Nuclear Blast
Year of Release - 2008