The group of young people Weltschmerz ("world-weariness") is a Black Metal band from the Netherlands, and this is their debut release. "Cry for War" was originally released in 2009, the same year the band was founded, and was later re-released as a tape by Zwaertgevegt. The EP is to be re-released once again as a split with Teitan, who'll also use their debut release (reviewed here) as the split material.
After the short and rather usual intro consisting of gunfire and explosions, the band begins executing their black metal a'la Norwegian and Swedish legends from the early 90s. The primitive-sounding and fast drums are backed with a rather powerless and simplistic bass guitar, and topped with guitars that have a slightly melancholic feel despite their mostly fast pace. Their sound is surprisingly clear and un-distorted, but their mid-pitch shreddings and repetition-based melodies teamed with the damp sound are exactly the things that create the melancholic feel mentioned above. The vocals are low grunts and growls, with not much variation or imagination used in their style nor rhythms aside of an occasional scream-like.
Although the band has the basic elements put together rather well, there are still things that should be worked on a lot. The guitars balance nicely between the Gorgoroth- and Marduk-esque shredding parts and the bit slower and melodic parts more reminiscent of the Norwegian scene (think about Mayhem), they lack the edge that would give the riffs their soul and character. They lack in high and low points, and the end results is too stale when thinking about the band's and the guitar's evident possibilities - and even though they spice things up a bit, the couple short samples between the songs just aren't enough to change the overall feel. The very simplistic and slow-pace bass guitar only amplifies the soundscape's flat nature, and I'm just plain glad that the band got a proper bassist after this demo. The vocals suffer from the same "disease" as the guitars; you can hear that they could've been much better, but for some reason they just aren't and end up sounding flat due to the lack of variation. The vocals are also a bit too on top in the mix, which takes power off from the guitars. If the vocals were more back in the mix and had a harsher and rawer sound, they'd do the songs a lot more justice. The drum sounds are one of the greatest things on the demo in a way, as they sound and authentically and honestly traditional with their unrefined sound. Their beats and especially their sharp-sounding plates stand out from the soundscape and give the demo a bit of life and pulse, but at the same time they don't sound natural amidst the otherwise damp soundscape and thus aren't really able to kick the songs themselves forward.
Weltschmerz released this EP too early. They seem to have had a decent idea of what they're aiming for, along with the skills for getting there, but for some reason they settled for too weak results. I'm pretty sure that the band won't go far from their path of worshipping the legends any time soon, but their output will lose it's meaning if they don't aim for a more soulful, enthusiastic and devoted results and means for achieving them. It's all rather promising, but I really hope that the band manages to rise up to a whole new level with more holistic music in the future - otherwise they'll end up being just another okay-quality oldschool black metal act.