I have a confession to make. Sometimes I buy albums because they have cool covers. Gabreta Hyle, the only full-length release by the German band Festung Nebelburg has your typical black metal faded picture of a castle album cover, but the burnt-orange color scheme really works for me. It's what caught my eye when I saw it on the web. The music? It's ok.
Similar to Burzum, Festung is the work of one man, Nattulv. The opening track "Gabreta Hyle" really got my hopes up. Over top of the main riff there's a lead guitar part that really kicks the song off. Sadly, the rest of the album has the lead guitar buried in the mix, like a lot of other bands do. The record never matches the intensity of that opening track.
Festung are a "folk-black metal" act, which mainly shows on "When Autumn Turns to Winter," the only song with English lyrics, the rest being in German. Which leads me to what I think is Gabreta's biggest failing, the vocals. Nattulv can do a very nice black metal rasp, but unfortunately about half of the album is sung with clean vocals, with much of that being spoken-word. Maybe it's because he does it German, but the spoken parts really enter into Spinal Tap territory for me.
Overall I feel that Gabreta Hyle has pretty decent music, but some missteps really drag it down. I think if Nattulv had stuck with black metal vocals, this would be a solid 3. As it is, it's a 2. It's not terrible, but I can't recommend it.
**
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