Gorleben – Menetekel
Release Date: 15th October 2025
Label: Darkness Shall Rise
Bandcamp
Genre: Doom, Death Metal, Sludge, Black Metal.
FFO: Cult of Luna, Black Sun Aeon, Dawn of Solace, Julie Christmas, Haxprocess, Mitochondrion.
Review By: Malte Brigge
Gorleben, Germany, is a small place no one would know about had it not become a decades-long center of nuclear controversy. Multiple waste disposal facilities for highly radioactive material have been built there, and not everyone agrees about how well the salty underground can handle that. It seems natural fit, then, to lend its name and aesthetic to an avant-garde death/black/doom/post metal band that spins sludgy tales of post-apocalyptic wastelands (I’m told—the majority of lyrics are, I think, in German, and if they weren’t, I’m still not sure I’d understand) in songs as sprawling as the blighted landscapes they conjure. Gorleben’s first album, cheerily called Game Over, is a creepy but fairly straightforward blackened deathdoom affair. On their sophomore full-length, Menetekel, Gorleben see themselves as radioactive troubadours from the future, but will we heed their warnings about what remains of our half-lives?
Although you can find Gorleben’s real names with some digging, their given monikers are more fun: 60CO and 235U on guitars and vocals, 232TH on bass, 239PU on drums and 85KR on keyboards/synths. Together, they bring four menacing songs that remind us our days have been numbered, numbered, weighed and divided (mene mene tekel upharsin). Their sound is difficult to pin down because it has so many … um, elements … but never feels crowded. 232TH’s bass has a tectonic resonance, while the drums take a slightly subdued place in the mix. 239PU’s mudslide playing, however, is not subdued: he approaches Gorleben like a jam band, reading improvisations and knowing when to lay in or lay off without overtaking the moment. The tone and style of the guitars, the many layers of electric piano, Hammond organ, moog, synths and effects—which goes a long way in separating Menetekel from its predecessor—and the live production call to mind the psychedelic fusion of bands like Amon Düül II and Nektar.
Countdown opens Menetekel with birds chirping through a heavily distorted distance and a thick, two-note riff that marries the repetition of early Sabbath or peak Mastodon to the structural builds of bands like Cult of Luna or Mitochondrion, preventing simple ideas from waning simplistic. I was several listens in before noticing it’s nearly four minutes of the first idea, setting the mood. The entire album is a strange combination of metal, gaze (Countdown), psychedelic (Sarkophag, Erg, Menetekel), improvisation (Countdown, Sarkophag), quick attacks and funky grooves (Erg) that feels immediate yet ancient and far away. It’s hypnotic, disquieting music the likes of which you would expect to hear in a steampunk setting, or a hazy underworld, a place of exotic dancers, smugglers and illegal pet snakes, perhaps a smoky cantina famous for nefarious, high-stakes dealings. The imagery Gorleben builds is a place that’s easy to get lost in because everything, though inhabited, is in ruins and every street carries worse danger. Riffs don’t repeat, they linger, and there’s a stark beauty to what Gorleben does that is like being seduced by harpies while fires burn perpetually in the distance.
235U’s gravelly voice and 60CO’s parched, blackened screech turn their voices through a variety of phrasings that drastically shift the moods of the songs. His roar at times feels strained, as if he’s wearing himself out, while her shriek often sounds like a response to his warnings. It’s their cleans (or, less harshes) that are most gripping, though. There is nothing technical in what 60CO does, but the chanting chorals before and after the Neil Young-esque guitar solo in Sarkophag have a dirge-like quality, a simple but effective melody that’s a little eerie and extremely captivating, reminiscent (more in effect than timber) of Julie Christmas. When her cleans appear on Erg, it feels like a spell is being cast. 235U’s odd phrasing in the back half of Erg, as if it were accidentally recorded in the background, removes you from any cultural locus. He alternates seamlessly between death roars and sludgey yells, contributing to the structural unpredictability.
I am entranced by Menetekel, literally. I can’t turn away while listening, and when it’s finished, I’m sapped. The four songs tell a story I can’t quite decipher but can’t stop turning to and, like a frightening dream half-remembered, it remains long after those last, strange notes echo away. Menetekel is not an easy album to penetrate, but is never difficult to listen to. The more I listen, the more its strangeness manifests, and the stranger it gets, the more I need to listen. And now that it’s under my skin, like radiation poisoning, I’ll be feeling its effects for a long time.
(4 / 5)
