Is it possible for a black metal album to be too true? Yes… 

There is a certain point in what one-man-show Trist – organized by ex-Lunar Aurora member Tristan – is doing on “Willenskraft”, I guess. He’s going for the picturesque and grotesquely alluring vision/sound of ambient black – what I call “Dark Elf Metal” (with loving irony). He manages that sound perfectly, but he’s overdoing it by far. 

The sea is the great theme on “Willenskraft”, and it certainly gets a lot of attention! After 13 minutes (!) of intro, constructed purely of sea-sounds and drunken shouting, the first real track, “Wagenmut”, starts of with 2.30 minutes of… sea-sounds and drunken shouting (!!!). Actually most of the album is made up of maritime soundscapes (waves, sea gulls, wind) and what I interpret as a bunch of pissed Vikings with hangovers. Funny thing is: The music doesn’t bore me at all, but the unending intros and outros wearies me to death.

The music – those few times it does appear – is brilliant if you like the monotone and minimalist brutality of early Darkthrone and late Burzum – I do! It is savagely melodic, but extremely simple, a great trance-like experience.

The only thing that transcends these two extremes is the track “Verhinderer”, which starts with a spoken-word-section of around a minute, and then contains nothing but gunfire and screams the next four minutes… Yawn… 

This could have been a good album, but it is simply too true to its theme, substituting artistic creativity for thematic purity, sadly making “Willenskraft” a rather boring encounter.