Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand * Sucht & Ordnung (2016)
Continuing on the psychedelic path, Der Blutharsch, etc. comes with an album with only three tracks, one of 8, one of 7 and one of 14 minutes.
The music is largely instrumental, slow and psychedelic, but on a few occasions there are metal-like eruptions and singing by Marthynna and less frequently Herr Julius.
Like with most Infinite Church albums I find “Such & Ordnung” alright, but not great. Good to listen to a couple of times, but not much more than that.
Links: Der Blutharsch / WKN
At the height of the fascist-musicians-hunt, Der Blutharsch came to the Dutch city of Leiden in September 2004. Of course the at that time usual raids of protests arose, but the major did see no reason to justify a prohibition and the show continued. The whole event became national news, especially when some of the local politicians said to go and see the show and Albin provocatively answered insinuating questions during the interview. There were no protestants outside the venue, but visitors were checked for ‘forbidden symbolism’. People had to deposit their iron crosses, while being the bandlogo at the time, they featured meters-high on each side of the stage. In the end everything was pretty much ‘a storm in a glass or water’ as we say here in the Netherlands. The politicians found the show tasteless, but not illegal.
The NY progrock band White Hills is currently extensively touring Europe. I must say that their Myspace tracks sound better than their track here which reminds quite a bit of Der Blutharsch’s current style. Der Blutharsch’s own track is a long stretched tone with some singing, “prog”, but not very “rock”. The White Hills track is the better one, but they do have better tracks.
A fortunate coincidence made that I saw Der Blutharsch live twice in the last week. They would play at a festival in Tilburg for which I bought tickets months ago. When me and my girlfriend had to book our holiday we had to mind to be back yesterday for the festival so we went the week before. Then I noticed that three of the bands in Tilburg would play in København on Wednesday and since a concert in another country is probably something different, we went there to see the alright show of Bain Wolfkind, the not too good and very short show of Deutsch Nepal and the very nice performance of Der Blutharsch in The Rock with about 50 other people. Yesterday during the Incubate festival the set of three played in the Hall Of Fame with a bit more audience and a much bigger place. Friends who expected the old style of Der Blutharsch were disappointed, one found the performance tame and save and however I liked the show, I remember the København show more lively, but that may have been because of the much more lively audience there. Der Blutharsch mostly did new versions of old tracks again and most tracks were pretty heavy but rather slow rock songs. I suppose that spelled the style on the new album, but I wonder why they did not just play new songs. “Flying High!” was announced to be more “psychedelic” and that is true. The catchy rocksongs of the last albums have been replaced by a slower sound, sometimes a bit of progrock soundscapes, sometimes the sleasy Bain Wolfkind rocksong style. “Flying High!” is not a new masterpiece. I like the fact that the band keeps developing in style and it is only a matter of time before this goes into a direction that I do not like, but the new album is a nice one for background moody poprock music. And for people who saw Der Blutharsch on stage, the music on the last albums, especially “Flying High!”, is by far not as loud as the rock-performances the band gives. There is less guitar, several different (guest) vocalists, no drumkit, but more different instruments than that are brought on stage. Indeed, Der Blutharsch does not sound the way they used to, but I personally find that a good thing. I play the rock albums more often than the martial predecessors and I may or may not get more used to “Flying High!”, but the time of “Kampf, Sieg oder Tod!” are behind us, just get used to the idea and see if you like the new direction of the band.
The latest effort of Der Blutharsch is not a very good one. Their track is instrumental and not very interesting and what is worse, the other band is some kind of boring metal/rock thing (“sludge doom” in their own words) with an awfull track. I guess the text on the single itself (“I Will Not Obey”) means that Herr Julius just keeps doing what he wants. I suppose I cannot always like it. The package is nice though.
The five last albums (or so) were all the last release of Der Blutharsch, but new releases kept coming. “Everything Is Alright” is just like “Rest On Your Arms Reversed”, the last cd of The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, a cd with collected rare tracks from limited vinyls and compilations, so who knows. “Rest On Your Arms Reversed” is the best cd of TMLHBAC. The same is not the case for “Everything Is Alright” for Der Blutharsch, but I must say that this collection is very, very enjoyable. I have quite a few of the limited vinyls, so I already had several of the tracks presented here, but I seldom play 7″s, so it is nice to be able to play them easily now. “Everything Is Alright” goes from about “Time Is Thee Enemy” to the present day, so do not expect the martial industrial old style Der Blutharsch, but the catchy poprock side of later days. Many people may think that Der Blutharsch has “lost its magic” when it stepped away from the popular martial style, I must say that I play the later ‘rocky’ albums much more often than the older material and “Everything Is Alright” may not be a “best of” compilation, it is an album that listens easily and can be played even when you have visitors. A nice collection of poprock songs.