An absolutely classic album that was recommended to me roughly 10 years ago,
along with "Burn Process" by Tactical Sekt: "From what I know about your
musical tastes, these two albums will blow your mind!". Indeed, this
one has instantly became one of my all-time favourites (I wasn't very impressed by Tactical Sekt, though). I love all Rudy
Ratzinger's works from the second half of 1990s, but this one is
certainly best of the best, with such killer tracks as "Die in Winter",
"Mortal Highway", and of course, the title track, "Bunkertor 7". These
tracks exactly represent my idea of harsh electro-industrial sound, and it's probably the heaviest album by :W: (maybe even one of the most aggressive electro-industrial albums of all times), with many tracks sounding almost like metal despite being electro.
Rudy
Ratzinger retired from making music in 2017, although he unexpectedly released a teaser for an upcoming new album about a month ago. Anyway, he still keeps re-releasing his old stuff, and here's the version of "Bunkertor 7" called "Concentrated Camp Edition" (nice wordplay!), with a lot of remixes as bonus tracks:
Here's one of the best albums in the whole genre of gothic metal with female vocals, which unfortunately didn't get the recognition it deserves. The band was formed in 1994 under the name Flowing Tears & Withered Flowers, and initially played typical mid-90s death/doom metal in the vein of Tiamat (I still have their cassette "Swansongs" bought long time ago). After shortening their name in 1999, they've released two albums with the sound increasingly being influenced by the 2000s gothic metal, and with Helen Vogt as their new vocalist, they released two more ones which can be considered the classics of that genre.
"Thy Kingdom Gone" is their last and the best album, released in late 2008. I'd describe it as gothic metal that doesn't follow the same formula as most female-fronted metal bands with operatic vocals (Helen's vocals are great but definitely not operatic) and "symphonic" sound (there's a lot of keyboards on this album but it's far from "symphonic"), and still being significantly influenced by 90s doom metal (I have similar feelings about my another female-fronted metal favourite, "Mandylion" by The Gathering, although it isn't particularly similar to anything released by Flowing Tears either). Nearly every track on "Thy Kingdom Gone" is great, but my personal favourites are "Orchidfire", "Rain of the Thousand Years", "Miss Fortune" (a track quite different from the rest), and "Souls of the Neon Reign". It's also worth mentioning that the title track features guest vocals by Vorph fom Samael. Too bad that they haven't released anything more, although Helen has expressed some wishes to record a new album in 2013...
Yes, it's that band whose song Deutsch Nepal took the name from, and that has influenced quite a lot of other industrial artists. That said, Amon Düül emerged from the hippie rock scene of the late 60s (that was so disliked by most early industrial musicians, and not without reason), but eventually became one of the seminal bands in the Krautrock genre, starting from their highly innovative debut album "Phallus Dei" (1969):
"Amon Düül was initially an anarchist commune, but it split into two factions, Amon Düül (sometimes called Amon Düül I
for disambiguation) and Amon Düül II. ADI was more politically
inclined, but ADII preferred making music. Their anarchist tendencies
are clearly seen in their music, especially on the albums Yeti, Tanz Der
Lemminge, and Wolf City.
The band can be seen as having two
distinct periods in their glory days, the improvisational period and the
compositional period. The improvisational period consisted of albums
such as Phallus Dei and Yeti, and, to a lesser extent, Tanz Der
Lemminge. These albums all featured long, improvisational tracks
(Phallus Dei was entirely improvised, and disc two of Yeti was as well,
but Tanz Der Lemminge only featured one improvisation). Their
compositional period starts with Carnival in Babylon and is highlighted
by Wolf City. In this period, the band moved to more structured composed
pieces. Many fans saw this as a poor move, but some believed that Amon
Duul II proved that they were just as good at composing as they were at
improvising"
I personally consider "Wolf City" their best album from their "glory days", and that's the album I would recommend to start listening to ADII discography from. Renate Knaup's vocals are certainly not for everyone's liking, and take some time to get used to them, but I think her voice sounds great in the opening track "Surrounded By The Stars" (my favourite song from ADII!). In general, the album sounds quite original and futuristic, and certainly not outdated even today. Check out one of the bonus track "Mystic Blutsturz", which might be considered one of the earliest examples of darkwave or dream pop. Not very familiar with the rest of their discography after "Wolf City", but as far a I know, there was a significant drop in quality of their music after 1975, so maybe I haven't missed much...
This undeservedly forgotten band is mostly known due to their ties to Samael, whose member Xytras produced their debut album "Still Dreams In Violent Areas". During the 2000s, both "Still D.I.V.A" and "Solar Child" were distributed here along with the Samael albums, so My Insanity were well known to almost every Samael fan. "Solar Child" still remains one of my favourite gothic metal albums of all times, and certainly deserves a place on my blog.
While the influence of late 90's Samael is definitely audible on "Solar Child", for the most part it's still melancholic gothic metal in the vein of Crematory, with a "futuristic" tinge (the usage of electronics is extensive but not over the top, though). The guitar riffs are fairly interesting and innovative for gothic metal of its time (sometimes even bordering the progressive metal territory). Somehow it also reminds me of "Revolution DNA" by Septic Flesh - maybe because it has a similar futuristic concept and lyrics that are interesting albeit written in rather "naive" English. While the lyrics can be outright corny at times ("Dead Season", or, for even better example, "The Girl In A White Dress" - the best track on their debut album "Still D.I.V.A"), My Insanity certainly don't belong to the so-called "love metal" scene. Overall, "Solar Child" is a quite original album (which, however, still has all the hallmarks of a good "conventional" gothic metal release), with good vocals and a lot of very catchy songs. And, well... did I mention that there's an accordion part in the title track?
One look at the track titles and artwork of this album is enough to figure out that it can't be taken seriously. Indeed, it's one of several fake "metalsploitation" albums released in 1990 by Ingo Nowotny on his infamous label Metal Enterprises. If you're not familiar with Nowotny's shenanigans (one of the funniest stories that ever happened on the metal scene), here's a pretty good article about the "music" he was releasing on his label:
"Metal Enterprises saw the light of day somewhere around 1985/86.
It's very hard to tell exactly, since very few of their albums stated
release- or recording dates. The 3 first platters were licensed
(?) editions of foreign releases. Nothing strange there, since this
was a cost-effective way to get a company rolling (Noise Records
started out in the same manner). What's is strange is the
undisputed fact that 2 of these acts, KILLER FOX and THRASH QUEEN,
are generally regarded some of the worst Metal bands ever put to
vinyl. Why he chose to release these particular LPs remain one of
the greatest ME-mysteries...
Starting out at the absolute peak of the 80's Heavy
Metal wave, Ingo & co. must have discovered that you could easily
unload a 1000 or so copies of anything with the Metal-stamp
on it, and if you keep production and design costs to an absolute
minimum you could even get your money back and then some...
The finest/worst examples of this very special "ME-sound"
are to be found on their infamous Fake Follow-ups. They contain
what is probably the most retarded music ever released under the
banner of Heavy Metal (which doesn't necessarily mean that the music
itself is Metal.) They never bare any resemblance to the
original bands or projects, but are pretty similar in-between themselves,
especially the "2nd" KILLER FOX, GODZILLA, THRASH QUEEN,
KALASCHNIKOV and FUCKER albums, and could very well have been recorded
on the same occasion. It's really hard to describe the sound on
these abominations. If you've ever experienced how comedy-shows
on TV or radio sometimes can parody Metal music it will give you
a faint idea idea of what we're talking about here. It's the music
of someone who might have heard a few minutes of Metal at one point
in their life and years later trying to recreate it with gleeful
intent. Drum-machines, ultra-generic riffing, strange vocal effects
and/or improvised singing. Any dumber than dumb idea you can think
of and more, it's in there. Like the sudden burst into whistling in the intro of KALASCHNIKOV's "Czarewitch"..."
All in all, it reminds me of the Blatnyak market in the 90's Russia, when the producers have realized that they can sell several thousand copies of literally anything that has prison bars (or anything else "gangsta"-related) on its cover. To make the Nowotny's case even worse - he later went on "White Power"-sploitation by releasing numerous RAC albums on his label in early 90s. And if you wonder how bad his "metalsploitation" albums were, check out this gem:
However, it's rather "so bad it's good" with that pseudo-operatic female vocalist yelling something like "Trash! Trash! People look like trash!" with thick accent, while the original Thrash Queen (the very first all-female thrash... or, rather, TRASH metal band in history that released one and only album "Manslayer" in 1984) was just plain bad and uninteresting.
I don't know much about Killer Foxx, another band whose name Nowotny has used in his "metalsploitation" attempts, except for one ridiculously looking photo of them wearing Kiss-inspired makeup (but maybe such looks weren't that ridiculous in the 80s). Anyway, they released one album before two of their founding members were killed in a car crash in 1987. Even this didn't stop Nowotny from releasing a fake album under their name (misspelled as "Killer Fox"). Like the original band, the fake Killer Fox was supposed to have a sci-fi theme, which manifested mostly in crappy "robotic" vocals:
To quote the YouTube comments: "If Beavis And Butthead started a band, this is exactly what it would sound like!". UPD: it turned out that the original band was founded by Matt Brooks aka Mick Stryker, who has lost both legs in a car accident (well, those guys had a really bad luck with cars...) He was paid welfare, which he invested in a small metal label called Landslyde Records, and he's also the person that produced the only album of the original Thrash Queen (and the only album by Killer Foxx turned out to be just as poorly recorded and uninteresting).
As for Kalaschnikov, the original band was actually quite interesting, being a duo with a black vocalist (which is quite rare on the metal scene even nowadays). Leaving aside the ridiculous lyrics, their music wasn't that bad too, and even quite catchy at times:
"Desert Storm" by the fake Kalaschnikov is also nowhere near as bad as the other fake release by Nowotny, especially if we throw away two filler ambient-like tracks. The rest of the album is repetitive yet somewhat catchy heavy metal, and when it comes to the obscure 80s metal bands, I definitely have heard worse. The album apparently has that pseudo-Russian kitsch theme that was quite popular at the time of Perestroika. NB: the tracklist almost certainly doesn't match the actual order of tracks on the album (i.e. "Homage to the Holocaust" is clearly #4)... but who cares?
In comparison to most other Middle Eastern countries, metal (and underground music in general) is relatively popular in Iran, yet the country is by no means friendly to such music - so many Iranian metal musicians eventually emigrate, and this band isn't an exception. Tears of Fire were one of the first black metal bands in Iran (if not the very first), formed in 1998 and played their first concert an year later. While modern Iranian black metal scene is still small yet far from nonexistent, the Iranian society definitely wasn't ready to appreciate such kind of music 20 years ago, and, if the official story is to be believed, the band members were arrested after the aforementioned concert on July 8th, 1999.
They have disbanded shortly thereafter, but in 2016 their founding member decided to reform the band as an international project based in Germany. Now they play a pretty strange kind of funeral doom metal with oriental motives (although I don't have much to compare with, as the only other Iranian doom metal band I've listened to are 1000 Funerals). This release is certainly interesting but hard to get into (just like Iranian culture in general).
So Long 2 Minutes 56 Seconds, So Short My Life To See Russians On Moon
Through The Great Nothing
This should have been posted on Cosmonautics Day, but since I couldn't post it back then, I hope one extra month isn't too late. Anyway, NMLSS_VGR is an anonymous instrumental one-man "cosmic black metal" project from Germany, apparently running by someone who has immigrated from a Russian-speaking country. Given it's an instrumental demo, the music isn't bad at all and has that "alien" atmosphere I'd expect from such an album. The uniquely snide song titles are definitely a plus too:
I think Alec Empire needs no introduction to anyone who knows what digital hardcore is, and I'm honestly not sure why I haven't posted anything related to Atari Teenage Riot on here yet. While ATR was the band that introduced me (and not only me) to digital hardcore, I'd rather post one of the finest solo works of Alec Empire, entitled "Futurist" ("For a man so certain that there isn't a future, he looks like one of its most confident architects" - from a review of Alec Empire's previous album "Intelligence & Sacrifice" in NME 2002). While "Futurist" is a logical sequel to "Intelligence & Sacrifice", it's probably more influenced by punk, metal and aggro-industrial than any other release in Alec Empire's discography (but not forgetting the electronics, of course!), and it's brutal and chaotic just like any other his work. There were even attempts to get this album on metal-archives.com, although I personally don't think it counts as metal (and the moderators of MA most likely think so too). If anything, "Futurist" would be best described as "cyberpunk", if only it was a proper music genre.
A good early industrial rock & metal compilation released in 1993 by a German label Mental Decay Records. Most of the bands featured on there are already well familiar to me, yet I did make some interesting discoveries - like Wiseblood, an obscure band which mixed industrial rock with swing and blues rock. I found out about this compilation thanks to Archive Industrial Rock & Metal, an awesome page dedicated to obscure industrial rock/metal from 80s and 90s (lots of very rare and undeservedly forgotten stuff on there!).
A powerful contender for the title of "the best bandname ever", Armageddon Dildos were formed in late 80s (various source state different years of formation, from 1986 to 1990) and became one of the best known old school EBM bands signed to Zoth Ommog Records in early 90s. This album, however, has a much more "modern" kind of sound, and in my opinion, it's the best one in their discography. I found out about it because of a review in the Vibrations of Doom zine, and it caught my attention because of the unusual name of the band (which turned out to be a slang name for nuclear warheads). After checking it out, I wasn't disappointed at all, especially by the tracks like "Götter Der Nacht" and "Traurige Nation". Some (but not many) of tracks on "Morgengrauen" have female vocals. AD apparently don't have a Bandcamp page, and almost all the download links for "Morgengrauen" seem to be dead, but this one seems to be working by now.
This album is my favourite among the now-forgotten releases from the 80s German metal scene, despite its rather poor quality of production (which was okay for its time, though). Not all songs on "Capture the Night" are equally good, yet it does contain some really awesome tracks, such as "Into the Sky", "Midnight Train", and the title track. What should be also noted is the outstanding vocal performance. While there's apparently something wrong with the anatomy of the person on the cover picture, this cover art reflects the overall atmosphere of the album very well.
What to expect from a release with the name "The Hand of Doom - Poisonoise" on its cover? Doom metal? Noise? Not really, yet it's surprisingly heavy for the time it was released. A reviewer on metal-archives.com compares this band to Deep Purple, Black Rose, Mercy and some obscure NWOBHM band, and it'd add Motorhead to this list. This very obscure album was first unearthed by the Vibrations of Doom zine, and later re-released by Shadow Kingdom records with a lot of bonus tracks:
"Who in the hell on Earth is THE HAND OF DOOM you ask? Sorry Doom Metal nuts, they're not Doom at all. BUT... good news, they're an incredible heavy band from Germany that originally had a limited press album from 1979. You might be surprised when I tell you they're really a Heavy Rock N' Roll Punk / (proto/early) Metal band, and very similar to the early bands that started the N.W.O.B.H.M. that combine early Punk Rock and fused it with Heavy Rock. I think this band will appeal to fans of (of course) 70's era MOTORHEAD, DISCHARGE, BRATS (pre-MERCYFUL FATE band), MC5, THE STOOGES, THE CLASH, SEX PISTOLS, SARCOFAGUS, ACCEPT, 70's era JUDAS PRIEST, DIAMOND HEAD, and all fans of the N.W.O.B.H.M..."
The second Rotfront album features less linguistic diversity than the first one - the lyrics are mostly in English, with some Hungarian here and there, and some rapping in German. However, almost all the tracks are extremely catchy (even more so than the catchiest songs on their debut), and the lyrics for them are very funny as well. Apart from a couple of weak tracks (i.e. "No Sleep 'Till Berlin"), this album is perfect if you like this kind of gypsy folk-punk in general.
Speaking of "positive" (and not too serious, since today is the April Fools' Day!) music - here's a band that was one of my greatest personal discoveries of the last year. "RotFront - Emigrantski Raggamuffin Kollektiv" is a creation of two Eastern European immigrants in Berlin: Yuri Gurzhy from Kharkiv, and his Hungarian fellow Simon Wahorn. The complete line-up of Rotfront includes many other musicians, mostly Eastern Europeans as well. The music is an eclectic mix of punk, ska, hip-hop/raggamuffin, tango (i.e. the track "Sohase Mondd" - although I prefer this song being sang by Judit Hernádi), klezmer and Balkan gypsy folk. Out of all I've posted here before, it reminds me the most of 44 Leningrad and Bandista.
They're also known for their animated music videos, like this one:
However, the most distinct feature of their music is the multilingualism of their lyrics. On this album, they use no less than 5 languages (all of which I know at least to some extent) - English, Russian, Ukrainian, German and Hungarian - and aren't afraid of mixing numerous languages in one song:
Darkwood is undoubtedly a well-known name in the German neofolk scene, but this particular 7'' isn't that well-known. Surely these two songs aren't very representative of the whole Darkwood discography because it's neoclassical music with female vocals in Russian - but that's the exact reason why I chose to post this 7'' over other, better known stuff from Darkwood like this song:
+The first song on "Talons" is based on a poem originally written by Henryk Vogel in German, and later translated to Russian because he thought it'd sound better if accompanied with a Russian folk-inspired melody. It's sang with a thick accent, yet I think it only adds some particular charm to this song. The B-side of this 7'' is mostly instrumental piano piece with a short a capella version of "Moscow Nights" close to its end. I couldn't find this 7'' on Darkwood's Bandcamp page, yet it looks like all its 299 copies were sold out long time ago, so posting a download link here hopefully wouldn't be a problem.
This project is named after a character in a Soviet sci-fi classic "Andromeda" by Ivan Yefremov, therefore it just have no right to be bad :) In all seriousness, it's a very unique kind of "cosmic" instrumental doom metal, not too heavy but very atmospheric. A kind of music I can listen to for hours non-stop without getting tired of it.
Erg Noor is (was? unfortunately, there are no news from EG since 2009...) a self-defined "misanthropic doom metal" one-man band started in 2004 by someone who was apparently born in our post-Soviet space but relocated to Germany during the 1990s (or maybe early 2000s) along with many other Spätaussiedler. There was an official site (ergnoor.de) with all his music being available for free download, but it isn't working anymore, and the current status of the project seems uncertain. I managed to find some photos of this guy which appear to be from 2011 (maybe a bit earlier), but that's pretty much all:
The debut full-length album by Xmal Deutschland, generally not as interesting as the subsequent two releases, but all the trademark elements of XmalD sound and atmosphere are already present on this one. "Hand in Hand" is an especially good track, albeit very minimalistic.
"Viva" is the 3rd album by Xmal Deutschland, released 3 years after their best work "Tocsin". In terms of sound and atmosphere, it's somewhere between "Toscin" and XmalD's late 90's new wave works that had more to do with 80's pop than gothic rock. That said, "Viva" is 100% old style goth rock/post-punk, just a bit "lighter" than XmalD's first two releases, and with more English lyrics. If you follow my blog closely, you probably already are familiar with one of the best songs off this album, "Polarlicht" (which was covered by Coptic Rain on their "Discovery" EP). The two opening tracks are awesome too.
Xmal (or X Mal, X-mal) Deutschland were an important old-school gothic rock band from Hamburg, Western Germany. I already have mentioned them in connection with Coptic Rain, but this album (the best in their discography, in my opinion) deserves its own entry.
Xmal Deutschland started in 1980 as an all-girl band, and while this album had a different line-up, all vocals on there are female, performed by Anja Huwe with her unique "howling" style. XmalD are often compared to Siouxsie & The Banshees, but I think their music is much darker, more "gothic" than "(post-)punk" or "new wave" etc. In particular, this album sounds exactly how the classic gothic rock should sound IMO. I well remember showing it during mid-2000s to the people whose idea of "gothic rock" were HIM-like bands :) Too bad XmalD had to split up in early 1990s (just like many other interesting 80s' acts), and didn't receive the recognition they've deserved. Still, they managed to release this album on 4AD records, which gave them some international recognition (which wasn't that easy for a band singing primarily in German). The atmosphere on this album is just amazing, which might be the reason why it left a much stronger impression on me than many much better known releases by British goth rock bands from the same epoch.
I decided to post this album on here after I stumbled upon this review, which in my opinion is spot on:
"The biggest knock on Funker Vogt (aside from the ridiculous lyrics- it
seems they were written in German and translated word for word into
English) has been their repetitiveness. If you have heard one Funker
Vogt song, you've heard them all. Well with Aviator,
they have put together an excellent album. The pace is varied and the
lyrics, though simple, can be thoughtful at times. This disc is solid
from start to finish"
Indeed, the earlier works of Funker Vogt seem to be too repetitive for me (can't say much about the lyrics, since I'm not a native English speaker myself), and a lot of people don't like the direction which the band took recently
with their new vocalist Sacha Korn (which himself is a controversial
figure), but this album features a lot of very catchy tracks ("Child Soldier", "City Of Darkness", "Hostile Waters", "Darwin's Nightmare") which are among my all-time favourites in EBM/electro-industrial. The atmosphere is great as well. I personally prefer the extended version with 3 bonus tracks ("Deathmachine", "Lost In Translation" and "Snow Was Falling") by Metropolis Records, but it isn't as easy to find as this basic one.
