Fallaness – Sagenwelten

To be honest I find most of one-man acts to be boring and uninspiring. Therefore my expectations towards another one-man project were pretty low. Luckily, to times we get surprised and it’s exactly what I got here. I’m talking of Sagenwelten, eight-tracker debut full-length from Fallanes, which has been released just recently via Austrian-based label, Running Wild Productions.

Burkard Lettner (already known to some from Winter’s Breath) is the real name of the musician who’s alone responsible for all instruments and vocals. Having in mind that this new project was founded in summer of 2024, it’s output is quite impressive. What we can hear on Sagenwelten are eight tracks (approximately 42 minutes in total) of atmospheric black metal that is rather impressive, both stylistically, visually and sonically.

Sagenwelten is a great concept album based on legends & tales of the old Danube regions around Vienna. The vocals are a sort of echoey and raspy, typical for the genre, but again it fits the music well. Guitars produce sometimes a short melody, over some brutal and heavy riffing, to more harmonic parts. The drums are programmed, but contribute perfectly to the dark aesthetic and a distant & echoing sound of other instruments. Ghostly vocals when paired with other instrumental inputs (ex. threatening keyboards) create this mysterious, dark, muddy and eerie atmosphere.

The production is top notch with an overall sound that is nice, rough and quite suitable for this kind of music. The same more or less applies for the cover artwork, which at first seems simple and dull, but after a closer exploration it revelas all its stunning beauty, depicting a time of when a tree is losing its leaves. The whole scene is shrouded in mist or haze, and it’s also what you can hear on these eight tracks.

While listening to Sagenwelten for multiple times now, I get a feeling as Burkard Lettner has set himself free, as he sounds comfortable and knows exactly what new ideas to try, with this project, that he couldn’t realise with his main band, Winter’s Breath. He utilizes some new recoring techniques while exploring and experimenting with different guitar sounds and sound libraries.

Lastly, the sound of Fallaness as presented on Sagenwelten is a decent piece of atmospheric black metal where the composer’s main focus is on creating dark and gloomy atmosphere, “dreamy” or ethereal textures, lenthy songs, and with a lyrical content about nature, local legends and tales. Sagenwelten is an atmospherically dense, well-structured and coherent concept album, that takes the listener on a depressing and arduous journey that is both monolithic, but also stunningly beautiful.

I hope Burkard doesn’t mind, but I think I can notice some minor Drudkh, Agalloch, Gaerea, Summoning or influences, but it doesn’t take away all the unique things creates.

Tracklist for Sagenwelten:

1. Die Hexe
2. Der Nix
3. Die Mühle
4. Die Eiche
5. Das Moor
6. Der Abgrund (Teil 1)
7. Das Tal (Teil 2)
8. Das Ende

Don’t hesitate to visit their page when you can learn more about this particular record and support the artist at https://runningwildproductions.bandcamp.com/album/sagenwelten