At the end of the summer of 2004 I heard that Von Thronstahl would give a show in Belgium. You don’t get the change to see this bands very often, so I went to a small village near Brussel. There wasn’t a very big audience, but the show that the gentlemen gave was superb. Other bands were the allied Trumpet Call and two bands that I have seen a few times more around the same time. Both HERR and Dead Man’s Hill seemed alright to me live. Not too original in sound and of an average quality. DMH tries to draw attention by shocking people with their shows (which sometimes works).
Accidentally I heard about this split cd that is of course a result of the show of 4 september 2004. “Sturmgewitter…” fortunately doesn’t contain live material recorded that night though. Each band contributed a few exclusive tracks (or at least exclusive in this form). Since Von Thronstahl always has my interest and The Trumpet Call gave a great show, this was a good opportunity to listen to studio material of the other two bands. The cd opens with three odes to Constantinopel (nowadays Instanbul in Turkey) by HERR. Three very nice to great orchestral tracks! Then follow two tracks by The Trumpet Call which are also very nice. Dead Man’s Hill (three tracks) is less interesting. Their first track is a very dark industrial but rather monotous track and the last one is better and more bombastic track, but their second track doesn’t sound good to me at all. The last band is of course Von Thronstahl, new versions of “Wider Die Masse” and “Bellum Sacrum Bellum” with guitar and in the second case new samples of America’s sacred war. A nice split cd of which especially HERR positively surprised me. <15/6/05><3>