Gangleri – musicreviews

Of course it was to be expected that Dernière would move away a bit more from the “martial” sound, but “Immortel” is far far worse than I feared. The sound is still recognisably Dernière, but the tempo went down and with the even more cheesy way of singing, the songs can hardly be called “catchy” anymore; “boring” or even “irritating” is a more fitting description. A few songs start like things will get better, but as soon as the singing comes in and the speed drops again, we are back to zero. I am sorry, but there is little positive that I can say about this album.
Links: Dernière Volonté, Hau Ruck!

Changes is not my favourite band, but they always have a few nice songs. “Lament” starts with a piano track and continues with a bit too usual Changes folk music. Fortunately furtheron there are some other styles such as an OFWATM like song and some more experimental and less (neo)folky tracks. “Lament” has new and new versions of old songs. I am not ravingly enthousiastic about this new album, but as always, there are a few very nice songs here.
Links: Changes, Hau Ruck!

However I have the debut 10″ of Novo Homo, I have seen the man live a couple of times and I like what he does with Der Blutharsch, I have almost completely neglected Bain Wolfkind. Stupid me! “The Swamp Angel” is an amazing dirty (blues) rock album which reminds me of Bluebob here and there. Wolfkind has more releases available, I might need to see if they are as enjoyable as this one.
Links: Bain Wolfkind, Hau Ruck!

This is almost a joke! For more than the price of a cd you get a large single with two tracks (45 rpm). The title track should have been released under the monicker Position Parallele and the other is just a replay of “Tout a Disparu”, but halfway it switches to disco mode with a rather boring sound. Of course it is not totally unexpected that Dernière continues its development in sound, but I hoped that with the (not really bad) disco sideproject Position Parallele, Dernière would at least have remained some kind of military pop sound. Rather it seems that both projects mingle. Of course I had to get used to earlier sound development of this French project, but “La Nuit Revient” is a lot worse than I feared on initial listening.

When I ordered this cd I did not realise that it was a rerelease of this classic split project of many years ago. I knew the album, but did not really like it and therefor never bought it, so in the end, I did… The project is interesting. 6 Comm’s ambient soundscapes combined with Aswynn’s recitals of Norse texts, but I happen to not too much like much of the music and also I don’t particularly enjoy Aswynn’s voice and pronounciation. The cd has it’s moments and surely is a classic release for having such a thick layer of paganism so long ago, but in my opinion this rerelease is more for archival reasons than for the quality of the recording.
Links: 6 Comm , Freya Aswynn, Hau Ruck!.
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Position Parallèle are Geoffry D. and Pierre Pi. The first is of course better known as Dernière Volonté, the second seems to have been involved in the same project in the earlier days. It is not totally unexpected that Geoffry D. took his accessible sound a step further and leave the “military” sound behind. Position Parallèle became a disco cd, or better said: a synthypop cd, because some songs remind of New Order or Soft Cell and I can promise you, the sound is as ‘faulty’ as the cover! Very recognisable are Geoffry’s vocals, but the sound differs a lot from DV as you can imagine. The cd turned out nice. It is not as good as ‘that other recent disco cd’ “Magic” of November Növelet, but it is a nice listening. A bit of a short one though, 35 minutes.
Oh, a nice joke has been made with the Hau Ruck! logo on the cd.
Links: Position Parallèle, Hau Ruck!.

I have the idea that this bands operates somewhere in the margins of the scene, but maybe they are more popular than I think. I have some compilations when them on it, a split 10″ with Spiritual Front and now I decided to buy their latest album. “The Silent Life” sounds quite ‘typical’ for the band, but as you may know, Naevus have a sound of their own. There are the typical vocals, poppy sound that can not really be called neofolk anymore and electric guitars. “The Silent Life” turns out to be a poprock kind of album. Not smashing, but nice and easy to listen to. The bands deserves the recognition if they don’t already get it, not because they are the best ‘new thing’, but just because they keep doing their own thing and do it well too.
links: Naevus, Hau Ruck!
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If I am correct this 7″ was released especially for the Wave Gotik Treffen 2007 performance (where I got it). Two typical but very nice DV tracks with catchy ‘military pop’. Nice package and of course very limited.
links: Dernière Volonté, Hau Ruck!
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Our young Dutch group sent a copy of the live-cdemo “Voorwaarts Lisse!” to mr. Julius who was interested enough to release a 10″ of Volksweerbaarheid. After some delay, it is finally here. Nicely “pigheaded” (what a strange expression!) with all lyrics in Dutch, title in Dutch (and a funny one, it means nothing more than “grooves in black vinyl”), titles in Dutch and artwork mostly in Dutch. Quite tastefull artwork too, I might add. Unfortunately there are only two tracks that are not on the cdemo and two others tracks are directly taken from this previous release. Also the demo is louder, more drumming and this 10″ more neofolky, but don’t worry, you will hear the drums too. Volksweerbaarheid is developing a nice style of not too typical neofolk with much drumming, some industrial elements and wonderfull 50′ies poetry-lyrics. Not too typical subjects and therefor not too easily put in certain corners. Hopefully a cd will follow soon, the band has material enough I heard in Lisse.

After a long periode of silence, here we have the second issue of the Greek magazine “L’Ame Electrique”. This magazine is very well printed, written in good english and has interesting interviews with Tribe of Circle, Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Waldteufel, Novy Svet, Of The Wand and the Moon, Gae Bolg & the Church of Fand (among others). However there could have been a shitload of reviews since the first issue, they sticked to recent and relevant releases. What is even more interesting though, is that the magazine comes with a cd with one track of each band that ever released something on Albin Julius’ (Der Blutharsch) “Hau Ruck!” label and the tracks are mostly exclusive and in chronological order.
So, in this order you will hear C.O.Caspar, Novy Svet, Dernière Volonté, Of The Wand And The Moon, La Maison Moderne, Tribe of Circle, Novo Homo, Lucisferrato, I-C-K, His Divine Grace, Decadence, Reutoff and Changes. Since Hau Ruck! offers a variety of styles of music, not all tracks are my taste and also it appears that most bands didn’t contribute their best material. But since all tracks beside Of The Wand are exclusive and it has all the bands from Hau Ruck! this compilation may be a good introduction for those who are not too familiar with the bands and a good expansion of the collection of those who are. Besides, the magazine itself is worth the money already!