Die Apokalyptischen Reiter has always been a strange band. In essence a black/death metal band, they incorporated heavy metal, pop music, jazz, keyboards, horses, slamming doors and more weird things into their sound. This resulted in an energetic and exciting listening experience in which you never know what to expect. With Have a Nice Trip they continue this practice; as the first track (“Vier Reiter Stehen Bereit”) kicks in, you are experiencing a regular Reiter song. The strong voice of Eumel is on top of the blast beats and aggressive guitar work.

The second track is in the same vein albeit a bit less aggressive. With track three Die Reiter confuse the listener because the song reminded me a lot of In Extremo; the same German vocal style and strange percussion with wonderful melodic guitar parts.

The song “We Will Never Die” starts like a country tune but changes into a song like “Metal Will Never Die” from the debut album or “Reitermania” from the last album All You Need Is Love. It’s a song describing the love for metal and their fans. Thanks to the catchy chorus this will definitely be sung out loud at concerts.

If the first songs aren’t enough to convince you that this is a schizophrenic album let me tell you the following: it furthermore contains a Spanish sung track (“Baila Commigo”), a ‘schlager’ song (“Das Paradis”), an Arabic like (love?) song with blast beats (“Fatima”) and a Manowar cover (“Master Of The Wind”) which is so horrible that it must be a joke.

How strange the songs may be, they all breathe the same instantly recognizable Reiter style. A few things have changed though. The lyrics are for the most part German instead of English, which could be due to the popularity of Rammstein and In Extremo. Also, the death/black metal parts have been kept to a minimum in favor of more heavy metal parts, both musically and vocally.

Personally I always liked the combination of soft and stronger parts and I think Die Reiter should be careful they don’t loose the raw aggression of the older albums. Although I think the predecessor All You Need Is Love is a stronger album, their debut album Soft And Stronger remains my all time favorite Reiter album. Have A Nice Trip is a worthy follow up and I’m eager to discover new influences and styles on the next album.