Reviews

Colicky is the name of the new mini-album, or better said, EP, by the band Self Defense Family. The cover of Colicky is particularly impressive. A woman, her gaze averted, surrounded by an aura of disappointment. Thus, the captivating image represents the theme of the album: the disintegration of love and intimacy.

The music of Self Defense Family sounds as naked and unprotected as the stranger in the photograph, and Staying Current is anything but an appetiser that is easy to digest. The musicians play their way through the almost unmelodious piece in a bulky, echoing and sluggish manner.

All True At The Same Time promises better things to come with a somewhat gentler guitar intro, but then Kidlon's voice enters again. Somehow, it always remains out of place, suffering and struggling against the rest of the arrangement. The struggle is so intense that it makes listening a painful experience.

After the second track, you wonder whether Kidlon just can't sing or whether this complete absence of connecting elements between vocals and instruments is part of the concept. Colicky was created in times of personal unrest, the press release says.

It Isn't Very Clear, Is It? is just as unwieldy as the songs that precede it, but it has a dark, atmospheric shoegaze sound. It's a song that can actually captivate in its own way. Maliciously, you could explain this with the lack of presence of singer Kidlon.

But with Brittany Murphy In 8 Mile, the innovative power of Self Defense Family becomes apparent for the first time: the seven-minute-long piece is an epochal cabinet of curiosities made of noise, punk, psychedelic rock and rage. Kidlon's unmotivated voice returns, but for the first time it seems to fit—still off-key, but fitting nonetheless. Kidlon, who also co-founded the noise punk band Drug Church, fully exploits his strengths here. He is at the centre, screaming and wailing, while the instruments around him go wild in a tornado of sound.

Colicky starts off disconcertingly, slightly irritatingly, but then manages to build up to a conciliatory climax with the final song. Nevertheless, the avant-garde approach to rock music that Self Defense Family claim will hardly be able to convince the average rocker. Colicky is for the brave who are keen to plunge into an adventure. But even then, it is a nerve-wracking listening experience.

Self Defense Family – Colicky

Release: 09/09/2016

1. Staying Current
2. All True At The Same Time
3. It Isn't Very Clear, Is It?
4. Brittany Murphy In 8 Mile

Wanderer starts off with a short, eerie intro. A threatening mood creeps out of the darkness. A storm is brewing.

I will not follow this misleading,
No tears will drown this fire in my eyes

Heaven Shall Burn leave no room for doubt: The Loss of Fury is more than a small storm. A hurricane is about to rage. And this premonition immediately becomes a reality: Bring War Back Home finally darkens the sky. Lightning flashes like strobes. The sheer force of this wall of sound relentlessly sweeps you away. The brute force of the verses is contrasted only with a captivating melody that lasts just long enough to grasp the fascination of this spectacle. Heaven Shall Burn indulge in navel-gazing, torn apart by the eternal question: is it worth fighting?

It is the big theme of Wanderer: change must come from within. The idea of the album is summarised in the booklet:

He seeks distance to change his perspective
In freedom and seclusion, he arranges his thoughts
Strength and power he regains in nature's shielding bosom
In vivid silence and familiar remoteness, he can listen to his heart
Yet he experienced that from no wayfare you return the same
He knows that nothing will change until you change yourself
And therefore, every revolutionary is a wanderer.

There is little time to deal with the profound, personal questions that the band presents us with. With Passage Of The Crane, they almost make us believe that the storm has already passed. But Heaven Shall Burn have become such an established institution in the European metal cosmos that this assumption would be pure naivety. Although Passage Of The Crane allows considerably more space for harmony than Bring War Back Home, Marcus Bischoff's growl has lost none of its aggressiveness.

Inside Out

They Shall Not Pass – Heaven Shall Burn are now raging unstoppably. The song starts off loudly, but the actual explosion follows shortly afterwards, transforming the hurricane into a fiery inferno. And it wouldn't be Heaven Shall Burn if a beacon didn't follow sooner or later. The band changes the focus from inside to outside:

See the Blackshirts are marching
But this time they will not brave the storm
Shoulder to shoulder we stand
This is a sombre season but my heart is filled with confidence
Believe me today, they shall not pass this way

The song refers to the battle of London's Cable Street on 4 October 1936. 3000 supporters of the British Union of Fascists marched through the East End. At the same time, 300,000 counter-demonstrators gathered and blocked the fascists' march. They shouted, «They shall not pass!»

However, the song is not just a nice history lesson. Today, right-wing extremists are marching again—more boldly than ever. Heaven Shall Burn reminds us harshly that history is in danger of repeating itself.

Downshifter is the first single taken from Wanderer. The thunderclaps go straight to the pit of the stomach. The hurricane reaches its first climax. An exemplary piece for the sound of Heaven Shall Burn. The instruments form impenetrable rows. The arrangement overwhelms until a melody peels out of the crushing force in the chorus.

In the Eye of the Storm

The winds become chaotic, constantly changing direction and speed. And a small letter makes all the difference: Prey To God instead of «pray to God». The unleashed force rages against blind obedience in the name of religious institutions.

Lying prophets, fallen hollows, untruthful revelators
Your fear of hell will drag you into a godless abyss

Heaven Shall Burn got some prominent support for this thundering statement. Marcus Bischoff and George «Corpsegrinder» Fisher, frontman of Cannibal Corpse, take turns whipping up Prey To God into an ultimate death metal hellfire.

The storm is still raging, but with My Heart Is My Compass—a short instrumental—we have arrived at the eye of the storm. It is only a brief moment of calm. Save Me lets a wall of clouds rush towards us again.

Apocalypse and Genocide

Suddenly, there is an eerie silence. A violin counter crackles us to the true apocalypse and the absolute climax of Wanderer. Corium is the end product of a meltdown, a devilish material created by human hands.

The storm that Heaven Shall Burn has unleashed is no longer natural: the melody fluoresces dangerously, eats into the ear canal like acid and leaves a lasting scar. The band angrily storms and pushes against the irresponsibility of nuclear energy, even against blind technology bondage:

No reason to see, into cataclysmic silence they still preach
In the name of progression, evocation of a certain nemesis
Standstill in the name of progression, we lost control

When Hunters Will Be Hunted, a song against hunting, appeared on the Veto album three years ago, emotions ran high among conservative politicians and hunting associations. But that will probably be nothing compared to what Extermination Order could trigger:

Trotha!
His name was Trotha, never forgive, never forget!

No Conciliatory End

After this indictment, the band turns its gaze back to itself. A River Of Crimson is a blood-red invocation of its own strength. Heaven Shall Burn emphatically asserts its inner convictions.

The hurricane subsides with the sluggish The Cry Of Mankind, a cover of My Dying Bride. The storm passes, revealing a world in ruins and ashes. Aðalbjörn Tryggvason of Solstafir piously suffers alongside Bischoff's rumbling. It is not a conciliatory end.

With lust, you're kicking mankind to death
We live and die without hope
You tramp us down in a river of death
As I stand here now, my heart is black

Dynamite and Empathy

No one expected a happy ending. Wanderer mixes anger, will and self-doubt to create a detonating stick of emotional dynamite. The songs are like punches, hitting the heart and mind. They do not forgive. Heaven Shall Burn are the uncompromising conscience. They skillfully avoid preachy morals with direct, courageous honesty. In doing so, the band is surrounded by an aura of bipolarity: on the one hand, they point out the evil of humanity, but on the other hand, it is precisely through this unsparing confrontation that they become good.

The result of this duality is empathy, which goes far beyond the musical, and it is ultimately also the reason for the magnificence of Wanderer. Listening to Heaven Shall Burn remains a humanistic confession.

Heaven Shall Burn – Wanderer

Release: 16/09/2016

1. The Loss of Fury
2. Bring War Back Home
3. Passage Of The Crane
4. They Shall Not Pass
5. Downshifter
6. Prey To God
7. My Heart Is My Compass
8. Save Me
9. Corium
10. Extermination Order
11. A River Of Crimson
12. The Cry Of Mankind

The iconic cross shimmers golden against a pristine white background. No writing, no other indication disturbs the monumental cover of At Hope's Ravine. The simplicity augurs an epochal greatness.

If anyone could ever claim the legacy of Ian Curtis, it would be Pat Hynes from Glasgow. His band Holy Esque has created a breathtaking album with At Hope's Ravine. The eleven songs blur the boundaries between religion and atheism. Holy Esque has taken on nothing less than exploring the modern relationship with spirituality. They pull it off with engaging conviction.

And yet nothing can prepare you for the intensity of the first track. The guitars flicker darkly through infinite depths, the suffering vibrato in Pat Hynes' voice goes straight to the bone. Prism is a quivering beacon, a flaming speech, a thunderous sermon.

Cold broken child on a path through the wild
Holding life on your way to the light
Whisper a way, oh my dreams they decay
On a sick dark node to your past

Rose sends crashing lightning through the sky. But even the raw power of the instrumentation does not detract from the incomparable poetry of the lyrics. The lyrics are the shimmering black jewel between the dark, dense arrangements. Pat Hynes complains, shrieks, twists and turns.

I doubt in my faith, now yours is lost in dark face
All broken lies so, I’d hope and I’d pray
Something so sweet, it’s bittered and frayed
If you love something truly now give it away

If art is the product of its environment, then this applies to hardly any other band better than Holy Esque. They reflect Glasgow's relentless sacred buildings, the concreted modernism, the raw wildness of the Scottish north. They playfully alternate between shadow and light, between melancholy and hope.

Tear gradually develops into an unofficial anthem. Hynes' voice croaks feverishly, and the guitars carve cliffs into the coast and tear apart the dark clouds. This is where Holy Esque stop to go all out. In their music, abysses open up into which you plunge – with relish.

Breathlessly, the band rushes through nocturnal streets in Silences, descending into dark catacombs with My Wilderness. They continue what the Editors and Placebo began: Holy Esque carry the legacy of Joy Division into the 21st century.

Nevertheless, the homogeneity of the album can be criticised. The songs only gradually develop an independent profile. The musical references to the dim 80s Goth are unmistakable, even if the band's own handwriting is just as present. On the other hand, At Hope's Ravine is Holy Esque's debut album. Even quiet moments like the eponymous finale At Hope's Ravine or Doll House are mastered surprisingly well by the band.

Holy Esque – At Hope’s Ravine

Release: 26/02/2016

1. Prism
2. Rose
3. Hexx
4. Covenant (Ill)
5. Silences
6. Strange
7. Doll House
8. Tear
9. My Wilderness
10. St.
11. At Hope’s Ravine

It couldn't have got off to a better start: the Austrian trio The Makemakes set off a fireworks display with Sweet Home. The song sets a heady pace; this is rock‘n’roll as it should be—wild and dirty. It's impossible to escape this magic.

Mary is a veritable blues-rock piece that builds to a fascinating frenzy. Mary may not be as catchy as Sweet Home, but the song is all the more sophisticated for it.

The band then follows it up with a poppy You Are Not Alone. By the time this third piece—and thus the third change of style—has been played, you have to ask yourself whether the variety is part of the programme or whether The Makemakes simply don't know which direction to go in.

The real shock comes with Merry Goodbye, an organ-driven, sticky, lighter ballad. Those who survive this are rewarded with I Am Yours. They have mastered the art of the ballad—without any unnecessary schmaltz. And yet you can't help feeling that you've heard the song before.

That is the big problem with the Makemakes. They aimlessly follow in the footsteps of the greats of rock history. Nowhere is this more evident than with Big Bang, whose riff sounds confusingly similar to the last moments of Jumpin' Jack Flash or the guitar licks in All Down the Line by the ever-popular Rolling Stones.

The melody of Heartache also falls into the «already heard» category. At least the Makemakes get credit for the clever tempo change. They also give their instruments enough space to develop a life of their own. This is something that happens far too rarely today.

Then Light In The Tunnel comes along, creeping up on you. The song is quite passable but not unique, either. Gone For Good is in a different league: unwieldy, without a consistent structure and driven by individual elements that cleverly fit together. The Makemakes shine again here. Their skills also shine through in Little Is Much More, even if the musicians have a particular penchant for stadium arrangements.

Probably the biggest irritation is the sleepy, soulful Save Me. A song for a sweaty tryst. It's actually an exciting song, but it seems out of place on the record.

In the end, the trio proves honesty but perhaps also irony. Pathetic Peace Song comes with such a fat portion of pathos that Scorpion's Wind of Change begins to tremble.

If you leave out the intro, there are twelve songs on the self-titled album. Nevertheless, you are exhausted afterwards. It is overloaded with references to music history: Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin. And you don't know whether they are laudable tributes or simply a lack of ideas.

The Makemakes – The Makemakes

Release: 24/09/2015

1. Snakes & Candy
2. Sweet Home
3. Mary
4. Your Are Not Alone
5. Merry Goodbye
6. I Am Yours
7. Big Bang
8. Heartache
9. Light In The Tunnel
10. Gone For Good
11. Little Is Much More
12. Save Me
13. Pathetic Peace Song

You see the horizon at the end of the stormy sea. Suddenly, an angelic chant bursts from the ruffled clouds. A dark and mystic voice lays a shadow upon your heart. The woman with the churning glimpse is singing: Adna Kadic.

Adna’s parents fled from the war in the Balkan to Sweden. In 1994, Adna saw the light of the world and grew up in Goeteborg. Two hearts beat in her chest: a Swedish and a Bosnian. A duality that can be found in her work.

She began her musical education very early. Aged 16, she uploaded videos on YouTube and was discovered by the label Despotz Records. Adna released her first EP just before she turned 18. On March, 18th followed her second album Run, Lucifer.

Craving And Loneliness

The beat pumps muffled. From a distance echoes a melody. Living, icey like the snowy tundra. And in a flash, the chorus erupts like a volcano. This concussion, this glowing lava in the dawn and this unambiguous craving. It is a compelling thrill. How can the 21-year-old Adna accomplish such a thing?

I need to get out of my own head to leave my whole past.

It is music without unnecessary ballast. Beautiful Hell lives without bombast. The song is modest and adorable, carried by the smooth wings in her voice. But then we realize where Adna has taken us: Onto the battlefield of loneliness. Doubts are marching to Lonesome. The first time, the air is full of pathos. Nevertheless, it is used thriftily, so the interaction between her singing and the instruments harmonises perfectly.

Bittersweet And Dark

Silent Shouts. The battle is over. There remain questions without answers and helplessness. The chants float through the whole record like lava streams at the volcano’s flanks. Glimmering but dangerous.

However, we are not afraid because the bittersweet and dark voice is back, as only a bleeding soul can bear. The unthinkable pain stabs us a knife between the ribs. Music—as smooth as it might be—is a deadly weapon.

And at the very moment you think it cannot get any more gigantic, you hear a sacral whisper echoing at the heights of a crystalline cathedral.

Would you meet me tonight if I’d ask you?
Don’t say yes just to be kind.

Solely accompanied by the gentle touch on the piano strings, the presence of Adna’s voice is incredible. “Shiver” cannot be put into words. It is one of these rare tracks which lets every rational thought flee from your mind. You prepare as well as you possibly can. But when it hits you, all logic fails. Only your body reacts, and you lose control. A frosty shiver pierces your skin like a thousand needles. And salty tears curtain your view.

Dark And Edgy

Run, run away, Lucifer
Run away, Lucifer
We’re choosing darkness over lightning

Adna’s Run, Lucifer is a hidden masterpiece. The melodies are made for eternity. Timeless. The music is the immaculate child of acoustic and electronic. The atmosphere is cold, like the Swedish winter, and the lyrics are passionate, like the spring in the Dinaric mountains.

But Adna’s work is not easy. “Run, Lucifer” is no shallow listening pleasure. Whoever is ready to take the journey into the record’s cold world will be suffering. They will suffer because the songs thrill themselves into their chests. Whoever tries to struggle against it is damned to fail. But those who might let go and let them overwhelm with their feelings are going to see a black and edgy and obsidian-like jewel.

And when you look in the mirror, you will see Adna’s glance in yours.

Adna – Run, Lucifer

Release: 18/03/2015

1. Intro/Berlin
2. Living
3. Beautiful Hell
4. Lonesome
5. Silent Shouts
6. Silhouette (Always Yours)
7. Shiver
8. Run, Lucifer
9. Outro/Somewhere