This article is about the band Lacrimosa. For the section of the Requiem mass, see Lacrimosa (Requiem)
Lacrimosa is a Swiss band led by Tilo Wolff, the main composer, and Anne Nurmi. Lacrimosa's musical genre has been variously described as being Gothic rock, Darkwave or a combination of the two. Their musical style mixes heavy metal and gothic rock sounds along with violin, trumpet and more classical instruments, although their musical development throughout the years has also led to changes in instrumentation. Lacrimosa's lyrics are written almost exclusively in German, although since the 1995 album Inferno every album has featured one or two songs in English, generally written by Anne Nurmi. Finnish has also appeared in a brief spoken intro to one song (Schakal on Inferno) and on a bonus track in a limited edition release of Fassade. Their lyrics are mainly about loneliness, sadness, darkness, despair and love.
1990: Tilo Wolff releases a tape called Clamor using the band name of Lacrimosa. 1991: Tilo Wolff founds a new record company called Hall of Sermon, as an independent label to publish Lacrimosa's records. 1994: Anne Nurmi joins the solo project to play keyboard, becoming a permanent member soon after.
Lacrimosa's first album, Angst, is a very gloomy piece of slow, rather minimal music, dominated by keyboards and a depressed, sometimes frantic and insane, voice. In this early period, the themes explored through lyrics and music are of a very bleak nature, such as fear, helplessness, loneliness, the non-existence, unattainability or illusionary nature of love, and death. The same thematic preoccupations can be found on the next three albums, Einsamkeit, Satura and Inferno, but now and then a more positive note begins to sound in the dismal tapestry. Musically, this period is characterised by the introduction of electric guitars and basses, with more and more rock elements being added to the slow, keyboard-based music of the earliest album.
