DAUTHA's debut album “Brethren of The Black Soil” stays true to the band's adopted mundane perspective as they convert the rich lore and history of Medieval and Antique Europe into their own take on Epic Folk/Doom Metal. Their focus on the commoner's hardship's and sufferings is most evident in the title track, in which they let a deceased serf speak out against his equally dead oppressor's, the landlords and the clergy, in the aftermath of the great plague of the 14th century. The song, which contains a psalm-esque section sung in Swedish with lyrics borrowed from the German poet Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664), is a testament to death's equalizing and unifying power, and to the vanity of vanities. The latter can also be said about the album's opening song, “Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi”, whose quelling title (often carved into headstones) translates from Latin to ”Today it's me, tomorrow it will be you”. In it, we get the dead's perspective on life and sailing on the seas of eternity, along with their plea to the living to live fully before getting in the boat with them. “In Between Two Floods” is a re-recording of a song from DAUTHA's “Den Förste” EP and describes the anarchic/hedonistic Geist within the plague ridden European medieval societies. The time of the great plague became a time between times for a lot of people, a carnival, during which nothing was true anymore and everything, subsequently, permitted. DAUTHA has chosen (whether 100% historically correct or not) to canonize these dead, making them pagan saints and sacrifices (some certainly were) willingly made for the good of the people in an age before The Cross casts its totalitarian light over the North. The dead of the bog still speak their resentment to those with ears to hear.
1. Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi
2. Brethren Of The Black Soil
3. Maximinus Thrax
4. The Children's Crusade
5. In Between Two Floods
6. Bogbodies