| CD REVIEW His Statue Falls |
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Band : His Statue Falls First thought that went through my head the first time I put this album on: “A band combining Dance-Techno with Screamo Hardcore…mùst be German!!!”, and I was right, because HSF comes from Saarland in the South-West of Germany! Playing their first gig in September 2007, the sextet comprised of lead singer Alex, guitarist/ backing singer Dennis, guitarist/ programmer Christoph, keyboardist Thomas, bassist Christian and drummer Max has been turning heads everywhere they went to play a gig. Following a lot of loose shows (during which they already made friends with the likes of fellow Germans Parachutes and Belgian act The Maple Room by lending support to ‘em on several occasions, and saw chence to get support slots in shows by US acts Across Five Aprils, From Autumn To Ashes, and Horse The Band) the band undertook its first German (9-date) tour with And Still I Bleed during July 2008, filling the month with an additional 3 German shows. The gigging year continues with a moderate average of 2 shows per month, but 2009 opens in grand status, when the band gets to play support to 4 shows on Enter Shikari’s European tour, which takes the band outside Germany for the first time to Luxembourg, Holland…and Belgium!!! With an increased gig rate (especially April, when they played 9 gigs without even touring) the band continues their way up, and while the guys continue to work on their materiall, writing new songs, Christian installs a brand-new studio…where (after an intense rehearsal month in July) the band starts recordings in early August. Evidently, the studio schedule and ensuing mixing of the album kinda turned back the band’s gigging possibilities, but the guys put in the occasional show anyway (among which 2 more shows in Belgium at separate dates). Originally hoping to be able to offer the fans their album by late October, the band suddenly shrouds itself in silence on their MySpace page (well…actually the guys have apparently never been so active in that department!). The reason of course being that the band was in negociations with German label Redfield! Now the album’s out on the streets, to be enjoyed by anyone open-minded enough to like the cross-breeding of genres! As far as I am concerned myself, I had already gone bored with the Screamo genre in the last couple of years, but the Techno (say Dance, or even EBM) touch these Germans bring to the genre works really infectuous to me! Well, I’ve always been into cross-breeding myself, and having grown acquainted with other genres being hybridisized with Dance synth sounds (Industrial, for instance), I feel this combination works rather well! Not scared to be daring, the guys even put two instrumental tracks on the album, featuring no (NO) guitars at all…and although I am essentially a guitar music lover, I didn’t mind one second, as the tracks are simply so melodic they sway the listener along in their melodies! Screamo means you get screamed vocals combined with clean ones, and in this case the screamed vocals have a touch of Black, rather than of typical Hardcore! It only adds to make the band’s sound quite different from anything one’s heard before, and if anything, one needs to praise the sextet for their originallity! At myspace.com/hisstatuefalls, you can listen to only two songs. You’ll find the vocals during “Give It Up! Give It Up! to be complete clean only, with no trace of the Screamo vocals used on the other songs. “Jasmin W. Knows How To Mosh” on the other hand, is more representative for the album! Pity the guys didn’t post one of the Techno instrumentals. Hum…if you’d ask me to label the type of Techno (good point, eh?!), I myself would put it in the Trance Dance sub-genre for the most part, with the occasionnal EBM tendencies to boot! Whatever! Check out the album! If you don’t like it, you don’t…but if you’re somewhat open-minded cances are you’re gonna lóve this. Take myself now, I’d already a rating in mind at the moment I started this review, but after giving it an additional 2 sessions while writing, I’ve grown so fond of the material (what with the underlaying complexities and the overal melodies swirling into each other, this is food for body ànd mind alike, you know) I cannot hold myself from upgrading Collisions (hey…I think I finally understood what the title stands for!) into my year-lists! 98/100 Tony. |