Stimmgewalt's Eskhatophonia is a truly unusual offering: metal a cappella. It's not a joke or gimmick. It's a serious merger of choral singing with metal songs and styling. Produced by Chris Harms (Lord of the Lost), listeners are treated to a cappella covers of Harpyie, Versengold, Nightwish, Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein. Stimmgewalt also adds its own original offerings which fit in perfectly with their overall dark aesthetic. Stimmgewalt tells us that Eskhatophonia translates to "Sounds from the End of All Things".

Though the group brings vocal percussion to the mix, the members are largely choral in their sound. Yes, the choir incorporates some throaty choices and offers soloists a chance to use both their covered and rounded tones as well as their "growls" (that's the credit given by the group). They even add a little throat singing from their vocal percussionist, Till Blumenthal. Sometimes, they choose to mix elements of these together; Burning Up, 10th Man Down, and Tribal Engel all provide great examples of how musically successful this can be.

Compared to the driving metal originals that inspired the group, Stimmgewalt is far gentler. But you can also easily imagine them scaring the robes off your typical choir with their aggressive choral sound. Their edge is context dependent — the unavoidable result of their production choices. The studio production is extremely natural. Yes, there's compression and some bass and vp enhancement, but it's always quite respectful of the group's natural, unamplified sound. It's authentic. It's a special kind of choir, but it's a choir.

As an audio recording, Eskhatophonia is less impactful than the wall-of-sound that has become the hallmark of contemporary a cappella for the last several decades, not to mention metal as a genre. In some ways, the album seems an ideal way to relive what must be an incredible and even shocking concert experience. But considering the sheer technological power available in today's studios, it's a bold choice not to have noticeably enhanced the sound at all, much less attempted to rival the source material in its spectral impact. The earth-shaking depth of the kicks, the deafening highs of the cymbals, the multi-effected distortion of the lead guitar -these simply aren't there. Eskhatophonia feels unplugged in the realm of contemporary a cappella and stark naked in the realm of metal.

In a sense, that choice works to jar the listener intellectually. It's unexpected. It's thought-provoking. It's unlike any group you've likely heard before.

But is it effective? That depends on whether you focus on the group's obvious talent and the dark, soaring spirit of metal which the group brings to every track, or the impact of metal's component parts, only some of which survive the journey to Eskhatophonia.

At first blush, the notion of so-called "dark music" a cappella — mostly various forms of metal (goth, death, etc) — performed by a group of a dozen or so professional singers seems promising. Or at least intriguing. Certainly (relatively) novel.

And although I expect the translation isn't perfect, if one took the group at its word that since December of last year, Stimmgewalt (the group's name, translating literally, I believe, as "voice power", or perhaps "vocal power") "has been defining a brand new, diverse genre with the release of its first studio album Eskhatophonia", then expectations for listening to said album would be high. In my case, mixed with some skepticism given the chosen genre, but hopeful nevertheless.

I regret to inform you, then, that this is not the album you might wish it was.

I have no clue if any of the following description applies to any members of Stimmgewalt, but to paint you at least a hypothetical picture: Imagine if a group of quite talented, conservatory-trained vocalists got together and decided to sing material that is diametrically the opposite of everything they spent all day singing in school. But also imagine that they had little, if any, familiarity with the arranging conventions of contemporary a cappella. And imagine if they chose to sing it (most often) in the same tone and style that they use for their classical repertoire. And imagine if their producer/engineer similarly had either no familiarity or opted out of using most of the conventional production tools that would be well-suited to music that frequently leans on wailing and/or distorted guitars and heavy drums.

That's pretty much what Eskhatophonia delivers.

It might even work as a one-off; I can imagine an ironic, almost humorous take on Nine Inch Nails' Hurt rendered uber-classically. But a whole album of that? Not so much.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. There are moments here and there where the group has flashes of what it can do best: the Bach-like fugue that opens Hautlos, for one; the initial ladies-led melody section of Ungeschickte Liebesbriefe; and the coloratura soprano of Lidia Luciano in 10th Man Down, which is spot-on. Choral and/or softer is what this ensemble does best. When things get busier, the arranging either gets super basic and clunky — see Tribal Engel and Laniakea as two examples of several — or messy/disjointed in a way that is a betrayal of their source material (see Morgenstern and the attempts at the upbeat sections of Feuergeist). And when the group isn't able to muster the depth and power of a song they're covering, they generally just get louder (and they often have already started fortissimo, so louder is ... a lot).

To their credit, there is also a fair bit of original material featured here — nearly all (in part or in total) by Anne Gropler — and I try to be more generous with my scores because I have to believe these are the realizations of the songs that the author(s) intended. Still, the material has to deliver on some level. It has to engage; it has to resonate. Gropler has a tendency to embrace the uneasy contrast between desperate lyrics matched with jaunty, upbeat melodies, but it's a well that diminishes in its capacity to quench a thirst the more one goes back to it.

The bottom line is that there is undoubtedly a way to perform this kind of music a cappella. And these singers potentially have the raw talent to do it. But almost everything else about their approach needs improvement and sophistication for me to recommend you check them out.

12 voices/12 tracks is one of the tags for the debut album Eskhatophonia by Stimmgewalt out of Berlin, Germany. Nice, I like a little math with my art, and parallelisms kinda do me just right. Don't get me started on a numerical palindrome. Whew! It made me itch a bit that there are only 11 characters in the group's name. Like, come on now! But then the fact comes into play that there are only 11 tracks on streaming services (ding?! and thus only 11 for RARB to review), and the number gods are working again. The 12th is a bonus track on the physical CD from the group, and we're back where we started. Cool on the mystical front and at the start of the review. So just like the title of that hidden track, Damn Happy, that's exactly what I am.

Stimmgewalt touts itself as the bringer of the "Dark" a cappella by covering metal bands. So my anticipatory hat was firmly locked on my head, waiting to be marveled. Unfortunately, I wasn't. Even though recorded a cappella is not a visual art form, these people look the part! I love their aesthetic very much. The number of videos I devoured on repeat while listening to and critiquing the album borders on the criminal. I need a shopping trip with Alina, Luna, and Matthias soon. Eskhatophonia, as recorded a cappella, comes across as quite tame, truth be told, almost pleasant. If the album represents "Sounds from the End of All Things" (as that same press release attests) and "the end times and the prophecy of what might follow", then I'm almost want to say bring it on.

Stimmgewalt is steeped in the choral tradition sound prevalent in many European and Eurasian countries with groups like NABLA, Naura, Voxerience, and Vocal Line, where polyphonic singing is carried by multiple voices singing a particular line. Here, arrangements rarely venture beyond four- or five-part harmonies or divergent rhythmic patterns. With the twelve exceptional voices presented here, there is a lost opportunity to really make chords crunchier and the sonic pallet denser.

Making unaltered or processed vocals sound anything other than choral is hard. And it's really hard to make music sound "dark" when it is mostly performed in major chords with extremely snappy vocables and arrangements. Not impossible, as they accomplish the goal with most of Tribal Engel and some with Morgenstern, but in general while these are metal songs the group has covered, the treatment of those songs is very classically colored. I imagine this is what the debut audience experienced listening to Carmina Burana — some Devil music without an ounce of a chance of actually going to Hell. Listen to the original song by resident arranger Anne Gropler, This Time It's Personal, to understand exactly what I'm saying.

What's not fair to the group is the studio processing they decided to go with. Not only does it reemphasize the choral aspect of the performances, but we also get a theatrical bent to the music where sections could be pulled directly from the recording and placed in a number of mid-level Broadway albums. Back to those comparative videos, the stylistic choices and sonicspheres make a whole lot of sense. The "live" rawness and grit bring to mind at least some forms of punk music, if not exactly metal. But as soon as those rough edges get smoothed out through studio processing, all of that bite has been bitten.

Eskhatophonia had the potential for greatness. Anne Gropler's arranging is too safe and rigid right now, coming across as a bit homophonic rather than polyphonic. Her original songs Burning Up and Hautlos lean heavily in the right direction, while my favorite track on the album Tribal Engel pretty much nails what I think is the group's intention. More of that. I suggest that Stimmgewalt look toward the past to help with its future recordings (again, pretty spot on with "live" videos that I saw). Bring out some FORK audio like Highway to Hell to understand what the audience's expectation is for "dark" a cappella.