Fassade (English: '' Facade'') is the seventh album by German duo

Lacrimosa The ''Lacrimosa'' (Latin for " weeping/tearful"), also a name that derives from ''Our Lady of Sorrows'', a title given to The Virgin Mary, is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. Its text comes from the Latin 18th an ...

released on 1 October 2001 by Hall of Sermon and

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label mov ...

Themes

Whereas the previous album, '' Elodia'', centered on love, ''Fassade''s theme is that of a lonely individual feeling overwhelmed by society, exemplified by the central song, ''Fassade'', divided into three ''Sätze'' (movements), and the album's artwork. There are also sounds between symphonic gothic metal and

funeral doom Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

metal rhythms and patterns, as seen in ''Fassade''s different parts. The album's cover shows a crowd of men and women identically dressed in what can be assumed to be

grey Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

(the album's cover is in

greyscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysca ...

), emotionlessly watching three women wearing

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

lingerie Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fashio ...

parade down a

catwalk A fashion show ( French ''défilé de mode'') is an event put on by a fashion designer to showcase their upcoming line of clothing and/or accessories during a fashion week. Fashion shows debut every season, particularly the Spring/Summer and Fa ...

. Every single individual in the audience has his or her head wired to the person next to them, implying that they are all part of a hivemind. The only person present other than the models and the audience is Lacrimosa's trademark

clown A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms. History The most ancient clowns have been found in ...

, standing in a side door. The back of the album's cover shows that the back wall of the theater has fallen away, revealing nothing but fog and the top of a

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

Reception

''Fassade'' received positive reviews from the Canadian ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'' magazine as well as from the German ''Sonic Seducer''. ''Exclaim!'' noted that the German vocals added to the overall "doom and gloom atmosphere" but was reluctant about the fact that all songs seemingly end too abruptly. The ''Seducer'' marked a surprisingly intense singing by

Tilo Wolff Tilo Wolff (born 10 July 1972) is a German musician and artist. He was born in Frankfurt am Main and currently lives in Switzerland. His longest-running project is the band Lacrimosa, which since its debut in 1990 has produced 11 albums. The b ...

and concluded that both singers Wolff and Nurmi would demand much attention from the listener.

Track listing

Personnel

* Arranged By, Orchestrated By, Producer – Tilo Wolff * Mastered By – Helge Halvé * Orchestra – Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg * Recorded By ecordings Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg– Michael Schubert * Recorded By, Mixed By – JP Genkel * Text By, Music By – Anne Nurmi (tracks: 3), Tilo Wolff (tracks: 1, 2, 4 to 8)

Charts

References

{{Authority control Lacrimosa (band) albums 2001 albums