This is the first time that I'm coming across this Austrian band, so it was obvious that I had to do some research about SIEGFRIED since there wasn't any kind of bio accompanying the promo CD.

Formed in 1998 by Daniel  Bachmaier, their name and as far as I can understand their inspiration is a story from the Norse mythology named Volsunga saga and the German epic poem Nibelungenlied, from which they took their name. That was how the hero of the poem was called (thank Wikipedia for the info ). The band has released three full length albums that I'm not familiar with and a demo effort.

So, what is the story with Nibelung? From what you can probably read in the previous paragraph, you may understand that this is an epic Metal album. Well, you are not that far away. The epic elements are here alongside with some symphonic parts and 'growl' vocals by Hagen. The production is on high level, something that I did expect since this is something that all the bands are taking in consideration. There are some interesting ideas and some heavy riffs and there are one or two tracks that gained my attention, like Fafnir and Die Eisenfaust (Alberich) but...
Unfortunately it is a predictable album. The compositions are following a straight line, without being interesting after a while and it all starts feeling monotonous. Hence, I eventually liked songs that are in the first half of the album. The clean/harsh male vocals/female vocals mixture is not something fresh anymore. The recipe is working for them, but you must agree it is something that you are listening to all the time. The other problem is that Nibelung has a role playing game feeling with three characters and unfortunately the melodies in the keyboards and the atmosphere look like a video game.

Overall, Nibelung is not bad album but (on the other hand) it is a CD that passed and only touched. Maybe it's the German language or the warcraft like music but - anyway - I think of it as a mediocre album. The German-spoken epic Metal fans will probably enjoy this release since they will understand what the lyrics are talking about. As for all the others, they will probably agree that it is an album that is neither good nor bad. So since there were some interesting ideas in here...