22 January 2014

ARSEN AKA KÖNIG DER MONSTER


I feel like this band got a little lost in the shuffle of late '90s/early '00s European apocalyptic emotional crust (to be fair, it was a pretty epic shuffle), but listening to these songs today makes me pine for that era of anguished screams and chaotic blasts broken up by drawn out quiet interludes. I feel like the people who made this music graduated to either melodic Eurocrust or black metal, as ARSEN AKA KÖNIG DER MONSTER creep right up to that form in the road without ever making a turn. For comparisons, start with AKEPHAL, ONE EYED GOD PROPHECY and ZEROID, though I think the in between bits from ARSEN... lean more towards whatever one might think emo sounds like than any of those bands. Just epic, and it holds up brilliantly after a decade (and perhaps especially if heard completely out of "scene" or context). This cassette from Fuck Yoga contains the entirety of their criminally limited vinyl output: 2002's Black Sunday EP and the following year's stellar No Gods...Only Monsters from Unsociable (who were responsible for ZEROID, ALLE DER KOSMONAUTEN and INSUICIETY, among many others). It's going to be a powerful Wednesday in your ears.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this. I stumbled onto a track by them on youtube and was really digging it. Was having a hard time finding a copy.