Black Heaven - Suicide Songs - CD

Welcome to the edge of the night. Here, at the end of all things, at the threshold between this life and the next, BLACK HEAVEN always felt at home. But even with that in mind, even when remembering that this darkly electronic incarnation of Martin Schindler (MANTUS) is shrouding the dark stains on our soul in majestic sounds for 18 years now, even when he is renowned for his role as a prophet of decline, he effortlessly enters a new era with 'Suicide Songs'. His seventh BLACK HEAVEN opus is a fall, a deep, deep fall. It's been eight years since the last monument, 'Dystopia', and a lot has accumulated, a lot has happened. Life has sharpened its blades on his soul. And now, he can't take it any more. He has to unleash it all, thus bringing forth this cohesive piece of art with a title that could not be more fitting. All at once farewell, disillusioned stock-check, bitter accusation and desperate search for catharsis, 'Suicide Songs' is a lot of things. But it's anything but your ordinary dark electro album. Martin Schindler knows what's happening with this planet, knows the human nature, our society - and yet, time and again, 'Suicide Songs' shows an artist almost unwilling to grasp what's happening all around him. Even more so, however, 'Suicide Songs' is introspective. It's him searching for reasons why all these wounds, scars and doubts declared his mind home. And it's him facing these wounds and fears, dedicating twelve dark electro anthems to them, radiating a tragically beautiful urgency that hasn't been heard since the early years of that fateful new millennium. 'Suicide Songs' is continuing what BLUTENGEL's 'Seelenschmerz' or WUMPSCUT's 'Wreath of Barbs' started: Songs like wounds, telling of deep longing, deep pain and deep beauty. It has been a long time since the beauty of despair has been captured as gripping and as moving as on 'Suicide Songs'. Rather selfexplanatory, then, that this record is by far the most personal, most honest and most intimate piece of art Schindler ever consummated under the moniker BLACK HEAVEN. Yes, it hurts. But it's healing us, too.