I was really looking forward to this one. LONG DISTANCE CALLING had a great new album out entitled “Avoid The Light”. This album is pure atmospheric post rock with a wide range of dynamics. Although the band usually prefers to avoid it you can find a song with vocals on this album. “The Nearing Grave” features Jonas Renkse (also singer from KATATONIA) as guest musician. Apparently KATATONIAs sound is not that much different from the LONG DISTANCE CALLING sound because this song would perfectly fit onto any newer KATATONIA album.
Speaking of KATATONIA I have to post a little side note about their upcoming album “Night Is The New Day”. Peaceville have published a teaser some days ago with excerpts from some of the songs which simply blew me away. You can check the album teaser for “Night Is the New Day” HERE (click on “Listen to album” on the left side). Enjoy it!
Back to topic. We teamed up at the club with some friends again and there were really a lot people I know who were attending the show. NIHILING had just begun their quite long set (must have been one hour) of their post rock which had an obvious list to alternative rock. There were three guitar players and a female bass player, three of them sharing the vocals with very different vocal shades. They had some really interesting moments but that was especially the moments when they abstained from any dissonant vocals. The basis of the songs was typical post rock but partly with the mentioned alternative rock influences and maybe they should emphasize this basis even more instead of trying to get into any vocal oriented genres. Good set though and the audience demanded for more and they were allowed to play three more songs.
Now it was up to the headliner. I have seen LONG DISTANCE CALLING live in January 2008 in Weil der Stadt / Kloster and already there I was impressed by the impact of their music. Listening to the new album I was, again, blown away by the intensity of the combination between samples, forcing and sometimes fragile guitars and the varied drumming. Now I wanted to see how the songs work out on a stage of course with high expectations! The approximately 150 people were yearning for the moment LONG DISTANCE CALLING would enter the stage. What happened when the band began with the first song was really remarkable for the Stutttgart audience which sometimes seems to be a bit paralyzed. The band was surprised as well and stated after the show that this was the best gig so far on this tour (I know that Karlsruhe will be great as well – but they will be playing there on Thursday). And you could see them grinning all the time – they seemed happy which made the crowd go totally enthusiastic.
Atmospheric songs were building up on simple guitar licks by all other instruments joining the scene, some parts underlaid with samples of speeches and of course most albums played were taken off the new album. It was just the perfect mix of everything, the right moment to play just these songs so I could again totally dive into the sheer beauty of this music.
LONG DISTANCE CALLING
What a great night with each other…
Go and check out the bands:
LONG DISTANCE CALLING: MySpace – Homepage – Merchandise
NIHILING: MySpace – Merchandise
P.S.: This time I did not forget my money – so finally I could buy the vinyl version of the new LDC album – yesss!
And here we go again with the next – quite short – live report. This was kind of hard because I was organizing the Secrets Of The Moon / Sólstafir / Code show the night before and still felt sick. But anyway it was a pleasure. The main reason why I was going there was because I wanted to meet the guys of LAST DAY HERE again. Phoning around I found out that HELLSONGS were playing this evening as well – only 400m away from the Beat!Club – and I got on the guest list. B.t.w. another rock event that evening was the SCORPIONS playing with orchestra on the opening of the new “Arena” basket ball and concert hall in Ludwigsburg. Damn I was thinking about to change everything and going there. But I decided to first go to LAST DAY HERE / SPITCHILD and then to HELLSONGS.
So after putting a new sofa in the right place and satisfying the need to get a meal I really had to hurry. The story behind this is that I really love the music LAST DAY HERE are playing but I missed them last time when they played with DELAIN in Rockfabrik / Ludwigsburg due to my job. But I was there, met the guys which was basically my intention anyway. So I was afraid to miss them – again – and they would be disappointed this time. But fortunately I made it early enough to only miss two songs.
First of all, LAST DAY HERE play a highly melodic mix of almost all modern kinds of metal but use metalcore elements aka screams very seldom and prefer clean vocal lines instead. Sometimes there are even progressive parts, perfectly played of course. To be honest I did not expect the band to put that on stage one to one like on the album. Especially the vocals were nearly perfect which really thrilled me. So after a while you got from nodding your head to be quite enthusiastic about the band and maybe you go totally crazy. On the one hand there is the really catchy music on the other hand their entertainment qualities do the rest. Nothing to complain about – and of course I was really happy to meet the guys afterwards and their manager Aleksandra. Check them out – they are a down to earth band with great music – everyone is welcome to support them!
LAST DAY HERE
Looking at the time I was sure that it makes no sense to rush over to the Universum Club to see HELLSONGS because I wanted to talk to the LDH guys. I checked out SPITCHILD. They are somehow also doing a disco version of heavy stuff. But no good for me. I already wondered whether they think they are playing the bigshot when I saw their striking keyboard stand build on two naked female dolls. Did not like them so I quit.
I have to notes for you guys out there – first one – the photo above is NOT taken at the concert in Stuttgart. I am sure Aleks will send me some – she took various pictures like she always does. So I guess we will have one from the gig here soon. Second one – if you ever got the chance to see HELLSONGS live – you got to check them out. They play accoustical, sometimes bluesy versions of metal classics from bands like IRON MAIDEN, AC/DC, SLAYER etc. and they have a hell of a singer. She is not only looking cute but has an overwhelming charisma…
I also checked some videos on youtube shot at the SCORPIONS concert I missed. Seems like it was a great show. The last time I saw them live they rocked – good live band and after all those years Klaus Meine still got a great voice (think whatever you want – but noone being objective can deny this fact).
Here we go with some links for the bands that played:
LAST DAY HERE – MySpace – Homepage – Merchandise
SPITCHILD – MySpace – Homepage – Merchandise
Post Scriptum:
Wanna see a scary picture?
I promised to Aleks to post this picture. She said that I am going to be surprised when I see the pictures inside of the booklet. But they are not as unusal as you might expect from my scary face on this picture, hehe (and no – the main focus should not be the drawing in the back). Anyway – good work. The LAST DAY HERE album “From Pieces Created” is a good product in this version…
/rating_on.png "1 Star")
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