Some records aim for delight, some for confrontation. Then there’s Requiem by Laudare, which operates under the premise of sucking you deep into its little realm, shaking the very ground you stand on, while simultaneously holding your hand through the storm. It’s anything but music, rather, it is an emotional reckoning. Laudare describes their sound as “violent poetry,” which does little to scratch the surface of what this album will deliver.
From Leipzig, Germany, this hotbed of the avant-garde, Laudare are forging a sound that’s resolutely their own. Conceive an idea of the emotional intensity of Deafheaven’s blackened crescendos, combined with the cinematic expanses of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the chamber melancholy of A Silver Mt. Zion, before injecting Ulver’s bold, all-over-the-map unpredictability and raw, nervy vulnerability of City of Caterpillar’s screamo-tinted post-hardcore. In a nutshell, with these references, Requiem hails from another dimension.
Right from the first track “Introitus,” it’s almost possible to tell this isn’t going to be one of those post-metal albums. It begins with a hushed combination of piano and choral vocals alike in spirit to the serenity of Gregorian chants, then suddenly launches into a cathartic storm of harsh screams and dissonant guitars. The interplay between such extremes is more than amazing-it’s touching. There’s a fragile, human vulnerability built into the chaos as if the music itself were wrestling with its existence.
The thematic weight of Requiem, a meditation on mortality and the impossibility of escaping loss-seeps into every note. Spikes of emotional ferocity are delivered in places, such as “Dies Irae” and “Rex Tremendae,” which is just about overwhelming. “Dies Irae” opens right away with an onslaught of tremolo riffs and blast beats, but it’s the cello that steals the show, wearily winding out mournful lines that still echo long after the chaos has passed. Meanwhile, “Rex Tremendae” shows the band’s ability to create haunting atmospheres which, through tearing apart all sparse acoustic textures into a monolithic march of sorrow and rage, stand out.
One of Requiem’s most marked strengths is how the album refuses to be held to a single genre designation: It’s at once post-metal, black metal, and chamber music’s none of those things and all of them. Take “Lacrimosa” for example:. With wide-sweeping choral arrangements courtesy of the Unichor Leipzig, the song sounds like it’s torn from the rafters of some gothic cathedral, fluidly lunging into sections of jagged guitar riffs and anguished screaming. Likewise, on “Sanctus,” angelic choral harmonies blend with raw, guttural vocals in a way that somehow feels, well, almost sacrilegious and utterly enthralling, for that matter.
Most bands went for the broke with either extreme heaviness or melody, but Laudare shines with subtlety.
Tracks like “Hostias” strip away the distortion completely, focusing energies on ghostly acoustic guitars, piano, and cello played by Almut. The quiet parts aren’t just reprieved but the herald of a depth Laudare can achieve in their emotions. Bleakness exists within these passages, yet it is an entrancing sort one inviting you to take up residence in your sorrow and find the beauty along its shadowy edges.
To those who just love fearless experimentation, Requiem is going to prove to be a revelation. Like Ne Obliviscaris, it shares the spirit in marrying classical instruments to metal, but here it’s earthier. It’s got the avant-garde unpredictability of Maudlin of the Well but is more emotionally anchoring. Inclinations toward Blut Aus Nord and Anathema-just about spot on-but Laudare injects an air into his music that is very personal to himself.
Bottom Line: Requiem dares you to feel: stand face to face with your fragile being, and find beauty in the struggle. A fusion of chamber instrumentation, blackened intensity, and emotional frailty, it aspires to a soundscape that’s as haunting as it is cathartic. This is not an album for incidental listening; it demands attention and rewards it with an in-depth feeling long after the last notes of “Agnus Dei” have vanished into the ether. With Requiem, Laudare creates a monster unto himself: no mere album but a diatribe, a homage to the connective, provocative, and healing potential of the music, reaching catharsis, even glimpses of transcendence for those steeping in its dark shadow.
