There are some bands that I really don't like, despite they have become big names in our scene. One of those bands are OPETH. Honestly, I can't understand why they made such a big hit. Anyway, that's another story. The thing is that many new bands are influenced by this mixture of hard riff and growls with melodic parts.

BELTANE is one of those bands. Formed in 2005, they released an EP at the same year and started playing live. Three years later, late 2008, their first full album was out. Not much more to say about the band, except that two members from the original lineup left BELTANE. Markus Holin and Daniel Edelmeier left the band due to other priorities in life. After that breakaway, Marius Borjans switched from bass to guitar. Then two new members came to complete the lineup: Daniel Woyke on bass and Volker Binias behind the microphone doing the harsh vocals.

As you probably understood even from the first paragraph, BELTANE's music has many similarities to OPETH. The production for a self release album is pretty good and it helps the band to show what they are capable of. The thing is that, even though they are good in what they are doing, they didn't invent the wheel. Unfortunately this kind of music, progressive death Metal that is, in the last years is, in my opinion, static, without having anything else to give, since most of the bands fall in the trap of copying the big names of the scene, rather than play progressive music! As for the lyrics, ... the band is influenced by literature, especially by lyrical expressionism, as the band says in their bio.  The album contains extracts of poems from Georg Trakl, August Stramm and Georg Heym, and also parts of William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet in the song called Ophelia, which is my favorite song of the album, too. Not a bad idea and the words flow nicely, but this by itself can't do much. As far as the artwork concerns, I must give some extra kudos, for their professional work.

Expressionist is not a bad album, considering that this is BELTANE's first release. That doesn't mean that they don't have to work hard and try not to copy the pre-mentioned band. An appealing album for the fans of this music, but I think that all the bands have to do something in order for the word progressive to keep having a meaning. For the fans of this music: