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Wappenbund

Operation Julmond vs Wappenbund * Steinklang Industries Festival (dvd 2006 steinklang)

This is the first DVD in a series of eight with ‘view and sound’ of the Steinklang festival of October 2004. The first half hour is for Operation Julmond, a not too appealing noise show, neither visually nor musically. The images and sound is good though, so watching the show it no punishment. Of Wappenbund I may have had too high expectations, but their hour on this DVD isn’t that interesting at all. The sound is by far not as good as with Operation Julmond, the music is mostly nothing compared the to albums and the show isn’t too appealing either. For both shows go that they have been filmed with several cameras and the montage is very well done. For the rest, this DVD is just live footage of industrial shows. They were probably better when you were there.
link: Steinklang Records
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Wappenbund * Kinder Des Lichtes (cd 2005 greyland records)

To be honest, initially I wasn’t planning on buying the new Wappenbund. Not that I don’t like this German project, but I already got three of the cd’s, they are not too easy to get (very limited and not available from my normal mailorder) and however at times very, very good, Wappenbund tends to sound the same too often. Also the cd’s come in special packages and are very short, which are reasons that I don’t play them too often. So I just figured that I wouldn’t take the effort of trying to find “Kinder Des Lichtes”. But then I read that this was going to be the last cd and since I have everything but the “Zurück In Der Heimat” 7″, it would be a shame if I didn’t complete my collection! So then the trouble of laying my hands on a copy started. I had the brilliant idea that I wanted to get this cd and the new Propergol from the same distro, but this showed a strange combination! Only one (Equilibrium Music) has both titles, but there were some problems with getting the new Propergol from the States into “fortress Europe”. But the cds came afterall.
So then, onto the music. The last Wappenbund proves to be a more tranquil, orchestral cd with hardly any of the bombastic militant sounds that I like this band for left. Some electro/technoish things in the beginning, but mostly orchestrations for the rest doesn’t make this cd the best Wappenbund by far. Quite a pitty. All in all this cd doesn’t bore me stiff, but I had hoped for something better as final album.

Wappenbund * Preußen (2cd 2003 greyland records)

The new Wappenbund is a box with two cds and very nice extras. One cd is “Preußen”, which is about the independent state of the federal state (of in better translation ‘part of the state’) with the same name. Of course this was a few hundred years ago and nowadays Preußen is a part of Germany. The cd contains the wellknow Wappenbund sound, bombastic, slightly militant and noisy industrial with a lot of samples Busslers distorted vocals. The cd opens very good, overall the cd has great tracks and alright tracks and lasts for 45 minutes.
In the box also comes the long anounced “Schlacht The Final Chapter” album (of 30 minutes). This one is a bit more noisy.

Anyway, if you like Wappenbund this one won’t let you down. 494 Copies, so you you may want to be quick. <15/10/03><3>

Wappenbund * Zeitenwende (cd 2001 greyland records / electronic sound lab)

An unknown band, an unknown label, at least, to me. It seems that Wappenbund has been around for a while, but they don’t have too many different releases out. The releases that they do have, come in different versions. This cd comes in a very nice envelope. It has for about 45 minutes of music. Greyland Records also seems to have been around for a while, but recently became part of Esola.de. This last wants to become a label/distro for electronica, techno and industrial, but only the industrial (Greyland) part is really up and running when I write this. Greyland on the other hand appears to be the personal label of a guy named Sven Bussler who is also behind most of the Greyland bands, and also behind Wappenbund.
As the bandname slightly suggests, Wappenbund makes bombastic industrial with militant and orchestral touches. The music goes from pretty harsch to fairly soft and has quite a lot of samples. I really like this and Wappenbund doesn’t sound too much like bands making similar music. So, if you also enjoy this kind of stuff, be sure so go to the Esola page and have a listen to the Wappenbund (and other) mp3’s and I am quite sure you will want to order this or other cds. <6/4/02><4>

Wappenbund * Blood & Fire (mcd 2001 greyland records)

This is the second Wappenbund release that I review and I think it is older than the “Zeitenwende” cd. It certainly isn’t as good as the cd. This mcd has five tracks. It opens very noisy and nicely militaristic. The second track can be downloaded as mp3 from the labels website and is a nice bombastic track. Then we get a rather boring track with singing, a not too great track with a distorted beat and a tranquil track that I also already had as mp3. If you don’t know Wappenbund yet, first download some mp3s and then get the “Zeitenwende” cd. In the coming months there should be a new cd called “Schlacht – The Final Part”, I can’t wait to hear it, since Wappenbund sure is an interesting project. <29/5/02><3>