https://youtu.be/rRHE–MO_r0

Band info

Band: Vatermord
Album: ‘Worte einer Kindheit‘
Released: February 19th, 2026
Genre: black metal, death metal, sludge
Location: Germany

Review

The notebook. A book about two kids sent out to the countryside during a war. Neglected by their grandmother, they will be left on their own. Hunger, solitude, cold. The depiction of social cruelty from the perspective of children struggling to survive. That’s what Vatermord chose to adapt for their newest LP ‘Worte einer Kindheit‘ (“words of a childhood”). Heavy stuff, difficult to put into musical form, a real concept project.

Vatermord use their native language, German, and for this purpose, for the difficulties of describing these things, it was maybe even necessary to use the mother tongue. The lyrics are ruthless, ugly, brutal. It would be difficult to describe the impact of these lines on the listener, but seldom has a musical adaptation made me want to read the original book this much. Of course, topics, lyrics like that deserve an acoustic layer that underlines these struggles of youth in war, that is just as inhumane, just as rough as the atmosphere of the notebook.

Sunsetter Studio‘s audio engineer Fabian Schulz was responsible for the walls of sound, for this aggressive, and, in the most positive sense, ugly tone for this sludge project. Big drums, big guitars, deep bass, distorted vocals, fragile atmospheric passages. And all that while everything seems detailed and balanced. It’s just plain beautiful, if terrible though.

And while this album may understandably deserve some trigger warnings at least for sexualized violence, it is worth a run through if you like serious, thoughtful projects like this. On its own, the track “die Dankbarkeit” (“the thankfulness”) might be a good point to just listen to.

Other links and platforms:

BC: https://vatermord.bandcamp.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/vatermord/