How do you cross from doom metal to film noir jazz? Easy, if you ask German purveyors of, as the say it themselves, "doom ridden jazz music", Bohren and der Club of Gore. Starting out in the early Nineties as a pure doom metal band fashioning their sound to, as even their name says, Dutch purveyors of doom Gore, today their music is something else. What is left today is the visual doom symbolism present on almost all their albums and the black feel characteristic both to the music they started out with and the one they ended up in.
This recapitulation album with apt play with words title, "Bohren for Beginners" (Bohren, by the way, is German for Drilling) includes none of the early domm metal sounds and personally, I don't mind at all, since I'm not exactly a fan of the genre. But as with other artists that have dealt with Film Noir sound the "doom" feeling prevails, throughout the band's music and is well presented in this compilation.
Now it is extremely hard to recapture, not only the feel and the quality of such heyday Film Noir composers like Adolph Deutch (another German), composer of the "Maltese Falcon" and other soundtracks, and Miklos Rozsa, one of Hitckock's favorite composers, but also successful recent day purveyors of the sound like David Lynch (Blue Velvet, or example or Trevor Jones (Angel Heart soundtrack). Still, Bohren and Der Club of Gore hit exactly the right spot - that very sweet and at the same very sinister "dusk to dawn" feel played as an even slower slowcore that was championd in the Nineties by the bands like Codeine and Bedhead.
Look no further than the sound of "Prowler" taken form their probably best album "Sunset Mission" from 2000. Deep acoustic bass, barely present drums hiting every third or fourth beat, and intermingling piano and sax playing each the haunting main theme. Even the cover of that album indicates the direction the band are going - high-rise buuldings in the dusk, lights just starting to flicker, with steam coming out of the undefined industrial installation in front.
And then that feel just prevails throughout. Sometimes it gets even slower, and when Bohren come up with titles like "Black City Skyline" and "Zombies Never Die" you can know what to expect. But that in no way means that their sound becomes predictable, there is always an additional twist added, making you feel melancholy at one moment and simply scared the other.
Even if you are a fan, this one is great digest to have around, if you want to get familiar with "Bohren and der Club of Gore", this is a perfect introduction. Just, don't play this one if you are going to go outside late at night. On the other hand, this might be the perfect soundtrack for such an occasion.
