Review: Vollmondprozession – Lazarus

Listening to “Lazaru”s by Vollmondprozession feels like stepping into a deliberately unlit room and being told to sit with whatever takes shape in the dark. The album radiates intent from its first moments: This is raw black metal that commits fully to atmosphere, ritual, and austerity, yet struggles to justify its own length once the initial spell wears thin.

There’s no mistaking what Vollmondprozession are aiming for. “Lazarus” is steeped in lo-fi hostility, cold guitar tones, and an almost monastic sense of repetition. The production is intentionally crude, stripping the music down to its most skeletal form. Guitars buzz and rasp like exposed wires, vocals echo distantly like invocations rather than performances, and percussion often feels more implied than asserted. It’s a sound that will immediately appeal to listeners who equate discomfort with authenticity.

The problem is that atmosphere becomes the album’s only real currency. Song after song leans on similar tremolo patterns and pacing, creating a hypnotic flow that initially feels immersive but gradually turns monotonous. Songs bleed into each other without clear identity, and while that can work in ritualistic black metal, here it often feels less intentional and more underdeveloped. The ideas are there, but they’re rarely expanded or challenged.

Vocally, “Lazarus” alternates between rasped proclamations and distant, chant-like passages that enhance the occult tone but rarely add emotional variation. The vocals function more as texture than narrative force, reinforcing mood without pushing it forward. At times this works beautifully, drawing the listener into a trance-like headspace, but just as often it reinforces the sense that the album is circling the same ideas without resolution.

Where “Lazarus” succeeds is in commitment. Vollmondprozession never break character, never chase accessibility, and never soften their edges. There are moments where the bleakness feels genuine and earned, where the minimalism creates tension rather than boredom. In these stretches, the album hints at something powerful and deeply personal, a kind of sonic asceticism that rejects excess entirely.

Unfortunately, those moments are spaced too far apart. The album’s pacing works against it, and the lack of dynamic contrast makes the forty-plus minute runtime feel longer than it should. The lo-fi production, while appropriate, also robs the music of impact. Drums fade into the background, riffs lose definition, and what could feel oppressive instead feels distant and oddly weightless.

“Lazarus” is not a failure, but it is a limited experience. It feels more like a statement of intent than a fully realized work, an album that values mood so highly that it forgets to evolve. For listeners deeply invested in underground, ritualistic black metal, there’s enough here to appreciate. For everyone else, it’s an album that fascinates briefly, then fades into the same grey fog it works so hard to conjure. “Lazarus” is respectable, sincere, and occasionally compelling, but its refusal to grow beyond its own atmosphere ultimately keeps it from leaving a lasting mark.