From 1999 to 2003, a German musical project called E NOMINE released three (simply amazing) albums that, basically, defy description.

The music is electronica… except it’s not, being considerably more melodic and varied than your typical endless repetition of the usual “uhn-TISS uhn-TISS uhn-TISS” beat that I find so intensely irritating.

It’s also choral, given that the songs invariably feature heavy use of Latin choirs as accompaniment… except it’s not, since the music itself is always an electronic dance beat.

It’s not techno, not really. It’s not rock, even though guitars and drums feature heavily.

Honestly, I don’t know what it is. And I don’t really care. I just know that I really like it.

The creators of E NOMINE, Christian Weller and Friedrich Graner, call this music “monumental dance”. I dunno about the “dance” part- try dancing to “Die Schwarzen Reiter” and see what happens- but it certainly is monumental.

Very sadly, the project pretty much went into hibernation after about 2007. But the basic concept of adapting hymns and choral music to less… staid formats persisted, and in 2013 the co-creators of E NOMINE released an all new “rock fusion” album under the entity SCHLAFES BRUDER.

The mad geniuses behind both projects call SCHLAFES BRUDER essentially the “natural evolution” of E NOMINE. And listening to some of their songs, it’s not hard to see why:

That last song in particular, “Metallum”, sounds a lot like RAMMSTEIN on really good crack.

I have to say, it’s damned effective. So much so, that I went and bought their debut album. And it is, indeed, quite good.

But then, what do you expect from the same people that gave us, in the words of my fellow VFM MidKnight, “angry Germans reciting ‘Our Father’ to epic dance beats“.