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Von Thronstahl

Death In June / Von Thronstahl / The Days Of The Trumpet Call / Folkstorm vs MZ.412 * Steel Night 29/11/01 (4cd 2003 cold spring)

This box is a registration of the first evening of the “Stigma festival” in London end november 2001. I’ve travelled to this little festival (see my report here) and I was surprised that after all this time a release dedicated to it comes out. A strange release by the way. Douglas P. asked if he could open the night with an accoustic set. A nice surprise, which you can hear here. The official and original fourth act, Nocturne from Germany, does not have a disc in this box though and I don’t know why. Another thing is that in two years time you would say that the recordings could have been polished through and through. Nothing is less true! It seems as if the recordings are taken from the microphones instead of directly from the PA. Especially in TDOTTC and Folkstorm you can hear the audience talking loud and clear. Further the sound is quite flat in most cases and for example Von Thronstahls ‘soundcheck’ in the middle of the show isn’t cut out. When you’ve been there, you know the situation, but ‘new listeners’ will see no advantage in it I guess.

So, what do you get? Inspite of the spectaculair descriptions you will read, this box is nothing more (but also nothing less) than a small box like TMLHBACs “The Smell Of Blood…” or Sopors “Songs From The Inverted Womb” (cd box size but slightly bigger). Inside are four slips with a disc in it and a small ‘poster’ with some live photos. The front cover is black with black letters.

DIJ has an 11 minute cd with 6 songs. Just Douglas with a guitar. There was almost no audience when DIJ played (even though the doors opened far too late), so the recordings are alright.
Von Thronstahl has a cd of a little over 50 minutes. They played tracks that were not yet released back then and different versions of known tracks. The recording is quite good.
The Days Of The Trumpet Call present their (to me) best material. In contraction to the normal releases there are some guitars and nice vocals which surely adds to the sound. As mentioned, the audience is too present and the sound is too flat. Short too, 16 minutes.
Folkstorm vs MZ.412 had a nice set which slowly builds up from dark industrial to extreme noise. Also here not too good sound and too present audience. The lenght here 42 minutes.

The price of this box is quite impressive, I paid E 40,- for these 2 hours of alright to nice recordings. Of course (again), I’ve been there, which makes this box a nice memory, but I don’t know if I should recommend this box to people who just like the bands presented. Should you consider buying it, be sure to be quick. There are 1500 copies, not extremely limited, but I suppose that with DIJ on it, it will sell out rapidly.

The Days Of The Trumpet Call / Von Thronstahl * s/t (cd 2004 der angriff)

These guys prove hard to keep up with. I hadn’t heard of this cd until someone asked me if I had it. While trying to order it from Raymond he told me that there is another split cd as well. Later I heard that both bands would play live in Belgium. So last Saturday I not only watched the great Von Thronstahl show, the interesting Trumpet Call show and the alright shows of HERR (bel) and Dead Man’s Hill (bel) but I also bought these two cds there (for the other one see below). This one is a split mcd with three tracks of both bands. The Von Thronstahl tracks are quite tranquil and nice. The Days Of The Trumpet Call is not my favourite band, but the exclusive track that they also played live (“Lebendige Mensch”) is by far the most interesting Trumpet Call track so far. The Days Of The Trumplet Call are a little less orchestral on this cd and there is more room for the guitars. This 22 min cd costs the same as the other full-length (see below) and is limited to 500 copies.

H.E.R.R./The Days Of The Trumpet Call/Dead Man’s Hill/Von Thronstahl * Carpe Noctem Festival I – Sturmgewitter Ziegn Durchs Land (cd 2005 carpe noctem)

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>

Von Thronstahl * “Lichttauffe” Leipzig 2000 (7″ 2001 fasci-nation)

Fuel on the fire of the disaster around the 9th “Wave Gotik Treffen” in Leipzig in 2000. A festival that began like always with 30.000 ‘grufties’ in an Eastern German city. Pretty soon the mayor of Leipzig and the organisation ‘found out’ that there were bands sceduled with a questionable philosophy and Death In June and Von Thronstahl were the first to be forbidden. Still Von Thronstahl entered the stage and after 2 or 3 live tracks, they left and put on the upcoming cd “Imperium Internum”. After this Ostara played a fairly normal show. Anyway, more bands were forbidden, the organisation ran out of money and chaos was complete. Von Thronstahl was blamed for the nazi-controverse and fell from grace in the opinions of many people. Parts from newspapers about the “rechtsradikal Josef K.” are printed on the inlay of the 7″. The fact that the band decided to release the recordings of their forbidden concert will probably not heal wounds.
Personally I haven’t seen the show in Leipzig. I had just heard of Von Thronstahl before the festival and I had no idea that they were actually supposed to play before I got there. When I finally found the “Parkbühne” the band had just left the stage and also it was there that I heard about the controverse around Von Thronstahl and other bands. Also at the festival (a day earlier I believe) I bought my first Von Thronstahl record in the form of their “Sturmzeit” 10″. Later of course there were the cd and recently the second cd “E Pluribus Unum” which are also reviewed in these pages.
The 7″ contains the tracks “Mitternachtsberg” and “Heimat, Mutterboten, Vaterland”, is limited to 500 copies, available from Josef himself, Vaws, Cold Spring or IDM (“initiative identität durch musik”). Apparently the 7″ is dedicated to Archangel Michael who is proudly depicted on the front.
Inspite of all the controversy the music sounds very good in my ears, the sound-quality of the live recordings is agreeable and the package wonderfull. Late november I am going to see how controversial a Von Thronstahl show really is when they play in London. I expect that as usual things are blown way out of proportion and personally I may not agree with the band’s philosophy I still didn’t get offended or scared by this wonderfull musical project.

Von Thronstahl * E Pluribus Unum (cd 2001 cold spring)

This is the second cd of Von Thronstahl. “E Pluribus Unum” contains contributions to compilation cds and other rare material, which I actually find a bit cheap for a second cd. On the other hand, it makes up for 64 minutes and there is also material that I didn’t have, so… What you will find are the contributions to Riefenstahl, Cavalcare La Tigra, Thorak, Audacia Imperat, Za Dom Spremni, the upcoming Iron Guard / Cordreanu compilation, Judas Kiss magazine compilation and some compilation of the Russian RWCDistribution. Further live in Leipzig, the 10″ and some re-works. All in all mostly unknown to me or different from what I already had. Of course most material is quite old, some tracks even sound more like Forthcoming Fire than Von Thronstahl. Also there is no coherence between the songs, but still this is a very nice cd. I am very curious about new material.

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The second cd of Von Thronstahl (which I first reviewed on 29/9/01) contains hard-to-get material. Compilation contributions, the 10″, etc. The material is a bit older and not all is as good as on the first cd. Still this is a very good album that has now been made available again in a digipack. Beside the packing and the order of the pages in the booklet (nothing left out this time), this new edition is completely the same. Dark industrial, ‘neofolk’, orchestal tunes, martial tracks and at the end a long compilation of ‘traditional music’. Again available for those who missed it.