Life can be really beautiful sometimes. You finish work, have a free weekend, and can comfortably sink into your chair, armchair, or your painstakingly collected beer crate collection to forget all your problems. Additionally, you look forward to new material from a strange band that has chosen an even stranger-sounding album title, which sounds more like an answer to the question "So, how does our homemade schnapps taste?" than a musical masterpiece. But well, since the existence of many self-ironic mohawk wearers with a penchant for uncontrollable volume control, there have been some punk rock gems worth discovering even under strange album names. Let's see if "Tulus" with "Olm Og Bitter" belongs to that category...
Even though "Tulus" sounds more like a disease than a band, they have had a somewhat positive effect on me, which honestly surprised me quite a bit. The music is more reminiscent of Scandinavian metal (and somehow a bit of "In Extremo"), which has been successfully combined with the rawness of punk rock. The instruments provide a nice (but not really varied) transition between hard and slower passages and moments of hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can. Both string and percussion instruments are quite harmonious (especially the bass sometimes takes a melodic journey and often feels very well placed) and fit the band's style well, but they still show quite a bit of wear and tear, which can become annoying in the long run.
The aforementioned "rawness" – and thus also the majority of the sympathy the band exerts on me – is provided by the singer, who neither indulges in the depths of so-called "growling" nor "screaming," but consistently sticks to his line. This gives the band its own touch, thus also giving them their own recognizability... which can be both positive and negative. In this case, it is a positive recognizability. Especially when the sometimes very beautiful-sounding guitar riffs play atmospherically along. Hooray!
However, less "hooray"-laden is the already mentioned monotony. When the instruments don't sound quite good or very fitting with the vocals, one might think that the album consists of the same track. Especially the "hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can..." parts become really annoying after a few songs (or at the latest after the second run of the CD, which can happen quite quickly after about half an hour) and make you automatically glance towards the "stop" button. I can't really stand this eternal and exaggerated fast drumming, which is why the band unfortunately quickly reaches its limits for me.
However, if someone can imagine nothing better than being swept away by very fast rhythms and equally fast instruments, they might be convinced by the audio samples. The rest listens briefly, thinks "Olm Og Bitter," and continues on their way.
