Extreme Music Blog

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!

Third time is a charm. Finally I had the possibility to see IRA live. It was really nice to go there after work (first usual work then mailorder work), first have a nice chat with some friends in front of the club in a warm night in late summer. A really relaxing atmosphere and a small club with a very personal setting.

LIQUID BROOM opened up. The band lately evolved from parts of the local scene. You could describe the music as typical nowadays post rock mixed with some electronic parts and a few straight-forward rock parts. Playing with a decent sound, the band often trys to sound “very post rock” but these moments are not what makes this band special. Their particularly strong moments are the erupting parts when the guitars are playing a doubled melody, but also the calm electronic moments. Maybe the band should try to combine these parts even more with their post rock sound. Anyways, painted with uv color which was emphasized by black light, they did a great show which made me dream at some points. They finished off after approx. 50 minutes when I wanted to escape the stuffy concert room for some minutes. But I will see them again for sure…

After a short gasp for breath IRA started with their set which consisted mainly of songs from their upcoming album “Visions of a Landscape” which are a bit wind down compared to older material. The sound was brilliant. If only other post rock based bands would use vocals like IRA but this is surely something that makes them very unique. Singer Tobias did a great job this night singing very emotional and nevertheless musically correct. The rest of the band did a great job as well transporting all sorrow, from time to time exploding in anger. With only six songs, each of them lasting almost 10 minutes, they built up a very own sound scape with great harmonies. I could not resist closing my eyes from time to time and simply savor the pictures the band was drawing with their songs. The sometimes very heavy guitars are often dubbed with a fragile lead melody, be it by the vocals or by one of the guitars. This was simply electrifying. After the song entitled “encore” which you can also see as live video on their MySpace site the band left the stage but came back for what this title stands for – an encore. So they played “Long live the parts”, an older song which was very very heavy in the live version. This was a felicitous finish for a great gig! I will surely come to your next show when you are around, guys…

IRA: MySpace – Homepage
Liquid Broom: MySpace – Homepage

Next live event I will be reporting from is GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT and DATURAH in Karlsruhe / Jubez, September 13th…

Feel free to comment or rate this live report! Express yourself, demand what you are missing!

Now off to bed, reading some lines and then finally sleep…

After a busy day which also included adding some new features to the blog, I went straight to a concert in Karlsruhe with some friends.

After meeting some other friends in front of the club we were too late for the first act – singer and songwriter TOM MESS which is sad because I wanted to see this guy. He seems to be very sympathic and “real”. Next time maybe.

When we came in, TRAGIC VISION were playing. First I was not sure about them. Their music can be described as indie rock with deep punkt influences. They did a good job although some of the songs were a bit uninspiring, but the audience like it and so did I. If you are into alternative / indie rock music and maybe also into punk you should check out their MySpace site.

We were standing outside of the “Stadtmitte” club in the really beautiful and atmospheric beer garden drinking some beers (not for me – I was the driver and of course only drank … a light beer). First we were not sure if TEPHRA already started but as it was clear we immediately went into the club to see the band we were there for.

So it was TEPHRA playing and already building up noisy guitar walls with screaming vocals and – surprise – TWO drummers. Yes, it is true. TEPHRA have two drummers at the moment and they were playing simultanously and really, really tight. I know that they had not enoguh time before this gig to work out something different than the two drummers playing the same stuff – they will do that in the future. It was amazing to see these two drummers having fun, moreover cheering each others up and at the same time playing the same notes really precisely.
The bands raging post rock / hardcore was performed with a deep passion which resulted in one guitar player having troubles with his cables. A break, technical problems like this is something that you can not do anything about but solve them. Finally – the band played some more heavy stuff with 100% of their engery which was intoxicating and simply amazing me. Drawing pictures with music despite of a static bright stage light is what I call art.

After TEPHRA we were heading for the beer garden again. Of course we wanted to check out the headliner, ANTITAINMENT. But their weired electronic-metalcore-whateve-mix was nothing I could bear for a long time. So back in the beer garde. After some more funny discussions and buying a tee, I met the TEPHRA guys and we talked about a possible show in Stuttgart for the next year. It will be a release show and I cannot reveal any details about what is going to be released – it will be a surprise – be sure…

It was a very relaxing evening with some really nice friends and a very cool band – TEPHRA – both, musically and personally…

P.S.: The new blog features include a live last.fm ticker so you can see all the stuff I am listening to and maybe check it out via last.fm.