IN EXTREMO – “7” (20-year classic)

IN EXTREMO
“7”
CD (Motor/Universal)

Whoever spread the rumor beforehand that In Extremo would say goodbye to their previous style with “7”, let the Middle Ages be Middle Ages and dedicate themselves exclusively to contemporary music genres – this person could hardly have been more wrong. This is already made clear by the opener, “Erdbeermund,” based on a text by Francois Villon. A classic lyric, the bagpipes that have become dear over many years, the usual rocking guitars – an In-Extremo song par excellence. Like the introduction, so are the following pieces of the album: The crashing “König Nimrod”, in which the band pushes the tempo in a hardly known way, the powerful “Ave Maria”, recorded with the support of Fanta Vierer Thomas D, the wonderfully melodic “Mein Kind” or the “Küss Mich”, which has rightly become a hit, show In Extremo in top form, even better than on the predecessor “Sünder ohne Zügel”, because tighter, more compact, more self-contained and songwriterically stronger than ever, which is not least due to the work of guitarist Der Lange, who has contributed a myriad of great riffs that make In Extremo sound hard as rarely. But “7” can also come up with one or the other surprise, for example the two acoustic pieces “Davert-Tanz” and “Melancholie” (which should prove even the last doubters wrong) as well as the secret hit of the record, the bitterly nasty “Albtraum” (“Ich hab’ meine Tante geschlachtet, meine Tante, die war alt und schwach”), which of course is not to be taken completely seriously. With “Segel” (“Set Sail”), In Extremo are then even good for the big dream again at the end: “Come with me on the journey.” Nothing better than that. (10)

Arnulf Woock

(The review was first published in the Orkus! issue September 2003)