Band:	Autumn Nostrum
Album:	Autumn Nostrum
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	1996

01. Lust Infernal
02. Autumnal Storms
03. Beyond My Gate
04. Lord Of Deceit
05. Melodie Der Trauer
06. Dream The Autumnal Storm

You might wonder why I review something so old and infamous, so I'll tell you.
I came over this Self-Financed debut work of Autumn Nostrum on a smaller Swedish mail-order company, and after just one spin I knew that this would spin again and again.
It's maybe not the most original piece ever, but it's surely good.

The story about Autumn Nostrum starts back in autumn(!) 1994 when Lars (Drums), Christoph (Bass), Sönke (Guitars) and another guy that left the bad almost immediately.
They used names like Anacostia and Korypheus, and the music was more noise than real music. The average age in the band at that time was 17.
Shortly after Marcus (Guitars) & Tobias (Vocals & keyboards) joins the band. And after some time they understand that Tobias can't be playing keyboard and sing at the same time, so Philip (Keyboards) joins too.
2 years later they record their debut, "Autumn Nostrum" that's released the same year (1996), and it's that album I have here right now.
(The have also releases one Demo in 98 and one 7" in 1999 before ending Autumn Nostrum).

The album contains 6 tracks (1 Instrumental), all in a quite Doomish Melodic Death Metal way. (Not the In Flames, Children of Bodom way, it's more brutal).
The music is darker; more against Doom than MeloDeath, but the vocals is more Death Metal than Doom.
I hope you get my point there, Brutal (Doomish) Melodic Death Metal, damn that was good.

Autumn Nostrum was quite famous in the German death metal underground in the middle of the nineties, and with this album they sold a very decent amount of copies.
And when I listen to it I know why they did. The music is very good, they really knew how to write good songs, even if I, personally, don't like the vocals that much, but it works just fine on this record.

And one thing that really surprised me is that the production is good (if you compare to other demos recorded in the middle of the nineties). And the keyboard really fits the music, even if I never really thought that keyboards would fit in a Death Metal act of this kind.

The melodic way of playing is the main point that got my attention, but after a while, when reading the lyrics, I can find that they really knew how to write lyrics that fits both the name and the music, thumb up for them there.

Overall it's a fine Death release, but less growling vocals and some clean would have been even better, but this where more how it was done back then.
And it's a shame that Autumn Nostrum gave up their musical career, I would really like to hear more from this guys. It would be great to hear what they could do today.
So keep your eyes open for this, it's possible to find it both here and there even today, and maybe you can write to the band (address in the beginning) and ask if it's possible still to buy from them, good luck.

Favourite Songs: "Lust Infernal", "Autumnal Storms" & "Dream the Autumnal Storm". But I'd say all of them, for it's a very solid album that never gets boring.