Showing posts with label Lower Saxony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lower Saxony. Show all posts

9/21/2015

Live-Review: A Place To Fall / FiftyFour Planets / Acoustic Steel - Lingen 19.9.2015

So this past weekend hopefully will stay some time in my mind. It was time for the local town party. The whole city of Lingen is changed into a big open air location at the end of each summer offering a wide variation of music to check out for free for everybody.

This big wheel gave the chance to take a impressive look from ca. 35 meters above over Lingen

As part of this event you can find one place that offers a special section that keeps it mostly a bit heavier for the younger people of the city. It's called "Rock am Pferdemarkt" and it had a good line-up this 2015 edition offering three of my favorite local bands on Saturday. A note: there were more bands playing but I will ignore those here since they don't fit to the musical style of my blog so I will stick to the heavy bands of the line-up

First out were "A Place To Fall" which offer a mixture of Hardcore / Heavy Metal along with a fine mixture of melodic riffs and melodies. I arrived early to the show so I was able to see the band doing the soundcheck. The band was going to lay it down heavy that was made for sure. They had brought along a good package of speakers so they were really playing loud. Plus they had prepared the stage with some whistle blowers which they used every here and there at the show. Finally the band took the stage and got into the set very well. Most of all vocalist Sebastian Molleker gave a good signature of his abilities. It payed off that he doesn't had to play the bass guitar anymore and could concentrate of the vocals. On one song he screamed the parts as if he was collecting them up from deep inside and was letting off some real pressure. That was towards the end of the set and I feel that he was getting better with every minute that allowed him to get out of himself a bit more.

Malte Hornung, the lead guitarist showed some cool riffs and it was a good mixture of heavyness with fine melodies put inside that made me curious on the upcoming release that the band is currently working on. Make sure to check out the track below so you won't miss out them. If the band had been given a stage time in the later evening time I'm sure the band would have had the chance to gather a lot of new fans. At this time it was too early for most of the people to show up. Keep in mind that the show already started at 18:50 h so I thing you can imagine it. I for one was very happy that I didn't missed them out. I would have really regret if I had chosen to stay at home.

   
Afterwards it was time for the change over which turned out pretty short. The crew and bands really kept things short and quick but nevertheless made sure the sound was kept in good quality. Next to go were "FiftyFour Planets". Having seen them twice before I was curious what the band was going to do with the big stage since they previous shows were at a small live club here in Lingen called "Alter Schlachthof". The band used the place really well, most of all the Synthesizer Christoph jusmped around a lot as he seems to enjoy a lot. :-) The band has a own idea of sound mixing up classic Punk Rock elements with Synthesizer sounds and a good potion of Hardcore heavy elements. So on some parts they really keep it straight forward to the direct classic punk attitude just to go over without further ado to the hardcore parts that make a pushing, raw sound while the synths give some fine melodies to your ears you won't forget so fast anymore.

It's these versatile mix of sounds that keeps in your ears and makes the music thrilling and you can never know what's comes next. The drum patterns are sometimes kept unusual giving it a even more own character. You should definitely check out their noise in the tube player below. The only thing I still cannot feel fine with is the reaction of the audience. Why not give some applause to the band, why not show some enthusiasm? The band really layed it down heavy so there was absolutely no reason to hang around calmly and not giving the slightest form of reward to the band. The vocalist was right as he counted the applauding people and pointed at them (I was one of them :-) and thanked them for their reaction.



Last to go on my list were "Acoustic Steel". As their name already let's you guess they are drawn towards the heavier side of music but in a acoustic form. That said you may expect the usual tracks to be heard, mostly slow stuff and ballads. Sure the band has them in their set but most of all they also pick up tracks from the really heavy depths of metal like Slayers all-time classic "Seasons in the abyss" that you wouldn't even think of to be remade in a acoustic version. But this band manages to do so in a serious way, so all of the typical elements of the original tracks are kept intact, it's just that they rework them to fit to their attempt to the music. It's even cooler that the drummer uses Cajons and percussion to play his parts and that fit's also to the picture. Their set was filled with a lot of classics amongst them some Iron Maiden numbers like "Run to the hills" and "Fear of the dark" but they also weren't afraid to pick up Body Counts "Copkiller" for a acoustic version. The audience reacted quite well and showed some cool sing-along with dancing and giving a lot of applause to the band which was well deserved.

The peak of the show in my ears was their cover of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" which I never had thought the people to go along so much on it. I guess the australian rocker may even have liked to see this performace for themselves. Anyway here I've got their current videoclip for you to check out. Besides going serious on the music the band also put's out some fun stuff making sure they never take things too serious so it's also good for having a smile on this very monday. The only thing I would wish for is the band to write own songs and play them. I love their covers but it would also be cool to see them performing their own numbers. But I've hope that this will happen since they aren't around for too long yet.


All in all it was a cool evening and I enjoyed every minute of it. Please keep the good work up all you people at the team of the "Rock am Pferdemarkt" as well as all of the bands showing up there. Hope to see you all around again!

6/11/2015

A Place to Fall upload new tune from the coming record

The second album from the german band "A Place to Fall" is taking shape step by step. The band has uploaded a new full track to Youtube which shows again a very versatile and technical but also raw and heavy approach to writing music in a modern way without forgetting traditional elements.

I like those little elements and variations the band put's inside - it gives them a different note to the obvious heavier elements and makes listen closely well worth it. Same goes for the vocals which vary from clear and pure to dark and screaming.

The full record will be entitled "Call to salvation" and is planned to be released in 2015. Until then check out "We're fading away". Make sure to keep track of the next band steps by following them on Facebook or visit their homepage. They are doing shows from time to time, mostly local gigs in Meppen but they are also confirmed to play in Hannover in December 2015. Just check the proper section on their website.

11/17/2014

A metal concert in a church?

Yeah, what do you think about this idea? Does it work out or should both sides not team up?
A band called "Solution Cycle" played their first ever gig last week in a church in Lower saxony / Northern germany in a small town called Nortrup-Loxten (that's near Osnabrück).

A TV megazine that reports about all the daily news happening in this region called NDR made a short news about it and I saw it on TV last friday. I thought it would be nice to let you guys out there know about it. You can get a impression of the event on the website of the TV station, there are pictures and some interview footage (sadly only in german language) available.

It's a nice bonus that the TV station has set up not only the mentioned site with a report in german and pictures but also uploaded the full show as a video for streaming. It's the full concert with a length of around 90 minutes. The stream will be up for a very limited time so better hurry if you want to check it out. If you don't want to watch the full concert but quickly check out how the band sounds then pick up this short video snippet of around a minute. A gives a short insight into the song "Fire of Life".

The pastor of the church Uwe Brand wanted to send a message out there that the church should be open to these people as well. The concert was a big success, the band played to a packed house, a audience of around 400 people of nearly all ages showed up. The pastor himself was also involved into the concert as he spoke some lines of prayers that were embed into some of the songs.

In 2013 the same pastor already made another experiment. He invited a gothic band at the holy place and that did also work out fine with many people, mostly non-gothics showing up. For 2015 the pastor hopes to be able to do another experiment that opens the church up so more people may come to the church again and have a different experience. You can follow the further band activities by clicking the like-button on their Facebook page.


9/25/2014

A Place To Fall stream first full song from upcoming EP

Support local bands! This band is from Meppen/Lingen (that's located in Lower Saxony, Germany) and they stream one full song from the upcoming EP. Check it out if you like bands in the style of Trivium.

They convinced me when they played at a small Open Air festival this year in Lingen called "Rock at the Church", a fine festival with no entrance fee nearby a church in the town of Lingen. They support the local band scene so it's well worth going there plus the atmosphere is nice.

The current line-up:

Vocals + Bass: Sebastian Molleker 
Lead Guitar : Malte Hornung Rhythm 
Guitar: Oliver Aepken 
Drums: Daniel Lübken

You can follow the further band activities by checking out their Facebook web presence.

2/05/2014

MONSTER posts snippet of a new song

A new song snippet from the band MONSTER has surfaced on their facebook page. It's a rough mix of a track from the upcoming album. Very cool stuff, like what I hear especially the more complicated part in there.

The band is still looking for a new guitarist, email them if you're interested: monster-band@gmx.de or send a message through the facebook account of the band. The band is located in Aurich, that's in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Update 2014/03/07:  The seach is over! The band recently announced Klaas Olthoff (ex-BURIAL VAULT / THE DAMNATION) as their new second guitarist. 
Currently the band is working on finishing the first length album which will previously be released early 2014 / spring 2014. Stay tuned, I'll post here if there's something new happening in the MONSTER camp. :-)