15 years of German Gothic history reach their tentative peak! 15 years of melancholy, of musical grief, of despair and of solitude culminate in a new studio album that is bearing the agony, the power and the wrath of the last 15 years and is yet gazing into the future. And above all that, above the dark melodies and the elegiac vocals, a single name looms. A name that could not be chosen better for this album, for this music, for this career: “Melancholia.” The end of all things is near. We knew that. We didn't know, however, how near it was. Martin Schindler did. After 15 years behind the steering wheel of Gothic galley MANTUS he should have said everything, should have done everything to free his demons and gain salvation. But apparently, he didn't, which is why he struggles on.
“Melancholia” tells of battles and of failures in a hostile world, tells how hard it is not to lose hope when faced with war, sorrow, terror and injustice. How hard it is not to look away. And thus, “Melancholia” begins with the end – with “Die Welt zerbricht”, a monument for depression, a song carried by a waltzing heaviness repeating one thing over and over again: “Und wir haben keine Tränen mehr.” Why is he still carrying on? Why is he still the architect of his sorrow, the composer of his very own requiem? Because he has no other choice. He is haunted, hoping against all odds that even after 15 years he will find answers in his dark music, in his suffering and cathartic lyrics. After the last, more or less worldly albums, “Melancholia” gazes at the inside, at the fragile soul of Martin Schindler, at his thoughts, his doubts, these always returning doubts and at the spectres of his past. Never has he written a more intimate and personal song than “Auf Papier” whose oceanic strings and pressing Metal guitars allow a totally unobscured view of his inner life.
Perhaps, though, this is the way. Perhaps this forced engagement with all things painful is his only, his last opportunity to finally understand what life is all about. 15 years with MANTUS, 15 years against the world have turned him into an artist that has been playing by his own rules for long and that is gracing the Gothic scene with an album breathing progress and being a scene masterpiece through and through. There is “Kopie” with its sorrowfully played acoustic guitars and the “Lied vom traurigen Sonntag,” the long overdue MANTUS version of the Hungarian suicide song. And because 15 years existence almost force you to glance backwards, the bonus CD contains new versions of classics like “Wir warten auf den Tod” which has been interpreted by Chiara in a way that can only be described as angelic. A lot has happened, a lot of scars will remain. But next to the wounds, the deep craters of the soul, one certainty will endure: It is music that saves us from an even worse fate. It's a work like “Melancholia” in whose tenor of desperation also lies the power that keeps us from giving up. Dark, deep and meaningful - “Melancholia” is the musical definition of gloom.
