Dresden, Saxony, Germany-based five-piece Nemesis Sopor return with their second album, two years after Wurzelloser Geist. The quintet released this stuff on CD at the end of May this year, and now the Greek tape-only label Nebular Winter Productions re-release the album on cassette. It comes in a limited edition of 100 hand-numbered transparent tapes, by the way. And the cover is very professional, with decent printing etc.
With Glas, which was once again self-produced by the band (and mastered at Temple Of Disharmony by Patrick W. Engel, who also mastered material for e.g. Wigrid / Sunshine And Lollipops, Epitaph, Hellish Crossfire, Chaos Echoes, Triumphant etc.), Nemesis Sopor bring almost one hour of grim, icy and firm Black Metal with traditional structures (strongly rooted in the Second Wave-trend), epic melody lines, cool vocals (reminding me a little to those of Vintersemestre’s), a strongly supportive rhythm section, and a sound that truly fits perfectly to this kind of material: unpolished yet neat. Especially the heroic approach strikes me, but this band has much more to offer. The main tempo is pretty fast, but it does include slower parts as well as fierce outbursts. And always that interchange in speed comes so naturally. Also the total execution, despite the total lack of originality (which I do not mind at all!), with additional vocals (spoken words, chants etc.), acoustic intermezzos a. o., is highly professional and technically crafted. With ‘technically crafted’, however, I am not referring to high-tech or progressive Spielerei, for Nemesis Sopor intensively focus on the approach of the very early nineties. Some pieces, by the way, especially the slower ones, are not only melancholic, but they do play on the edge of the Atmospheric Black Metal-sound.
The cassette-edition comes with a bonus song, Schwingen Der Leere, re-recorded for this release especially.