Stumm is a cool band. They don't care about fashion, image, the general opinion or any other trivial matters. They want to play ugly, dirty and filthy music – so that's what they do. I like them for that. The cover art will give you a good impression of what this will do to you. Some will crawl hiding into the nearest corner because they find this ridiculously bad, others will crawl hiding into the nearest corner because they are caught up in atmospheric torture of the album. Either way, you'll need a place to hide.

Stumm is best described as a sludgier, thicker version of Senthil or Funeralium. Slow, feedback-drenched riffs that'll crawl under your skin, heavy, heavy drums and bass support and tortured, pained growls. Not something new in the realm of Extreme Metal/Doom, but that's alright, because they do what they do with passion. Every riff is another nail in your coffin and every scream is one that causes earache. For your mercy, they've kept this disc to thirty-five minutes only, which makes this path of pain a rather short one. Given the circumstances, it's more than enough, though.

For a debut album, this is more than ok. They could spice things up a little with a few more build-ups and climaxes, but then again, the nihilistic minimalism is what this genre revolves around. It's slow, heavy, excruciating and that's all that matters. "I" is an album that I've already heard a dozen times before, from various bands, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. I really don't know what's wrong with me, but there is just something indescribable that I love in this extreme, utterly hateful and nihilistic type of music. Waiting for "II"!

Read this article on the author's website: Metal Storm.
More info on Stumm and on I or browse the press archive for more articles.