The Ellende project has already gained local fame thanks to its distinctive vision of metal. After a long journey, the project's founder, Lukas Gosch from Austria, released the album Todbringer in 2016, which established the project's reputation within the metal community. With that release, he successfully fused technical craftsmanship with a unique post-black metal atmosphere.
Despite the rather disturbing cover, Zerfall doesn’t cultivate the all-encompassing destruction through its sound. Yes, it's still about sadness and melancholy. But it's not the atmosphere of Satan's lair, as the shaggy Norwegian guys did in the 90s. It's not the dirty toilets that Lifelover sang about. It's a deep apathy when you can't get out of bed. The chaos is not outside, but inside you. This is the feeling that the opening track Nur tries to create: light piano, magnificent drums, a compressed female voice that gently reminds the listener of the imminent end.
The vocals evoke a pleasant feeling. Extreme parts transition into whispers or pure singing, blending seamlessly with the guitar solos and barely standing out against the backdrop of the drums. And oh my God, the drums here are worth mentioning. After you get accustomed to their presence in the first half of the album, a new background kick at 120 BPM suddenly enters the composition Zerfall, as if you can hear your own heartbeat after headbanging to male screams. A subtle sense of disorder is further created by occasional sounds—background noises, field recordings, randomly added cowbell beats—giving the impression that the drummer started to tremble, but they decided to leave the result as it was. All of this creates a variety that keeps the listener from getting bored.
I wouldn’t say that Ellende managed to match the level of Todbringer, which was truly powerful. But Zerfall tries to follow the path, where blast beats and screams are combined with rich instrumentation and harmonies. The ending of the album, represented by the two-part track Zeitenwende Teil, brings together the entire arsenal of the album, providing a kind of summary of everything heard before. There are amazing guitar solos, a lonely piano part, and a violin that makes you dive into memories. Ellende remains true to its traditions and has been delighting listeners with its profound material in recent years.