Oct 102012
 

I caved in to impulse again this morning.  While browsing the interhole to see what was happening in the world of metal, I saw a Facebook post by Planks about a show they’re playing in Plauen, Germany on November 16 with two other German bands, Trainwreck and Lentic Waters. Event details can be found here. The show seems to be part of a two-day fest called Deaf Row, and I came across a flyer for the fest that I thought was cool enough to paste on the top of this post.

Hannover is on the other side of the world from where I live in Seattle, so it seems unlikely that I’ll be at that show, unless of course the Seattle tech geeks figure out how to get my fuckin’ teleporter working again. I’ve become a big fan of Planks but didn’t know anything about Trainwreck or Lentic Waters, so I thought, what the fuck, time to check out some new music!

PLANKS

I first heard the music of Planks over the most recent Labor Day weekend and wrote about them here. What I heard was a Bandcamp stream of Planks’ amazing new album, Funeral Mouth, which is being released on October 12 but can be downloaded via that Bandcamp link right now.

In compiling today’s post, I discovered that Planks also recorded a split with one of the other bands featured on that November 16 show, Lentic Waters. The split was released in June of this year on vinyl by Apocaplexy Records (which can be ordered here), but it turns out that Apopoplexy also made the split available for free download via a link on this page.

Planks contributed three songs to the split – “It Fell To the Snakes”, “The Mask Is Genuine”, and “Leave and Never Come Back”. All three songs are streaming on Bandcamp and can also be downloaded there through a contribution to Planks. All three songs are riveting, a combination of black metal thrashing, doom-laden slowdowns, fangs-bared howling, and striking guitar melodies that will ring off the walls of your skull at the same time as you’re banging it hard.

This band continue to wow me with their dark, dynamic, visceral music. They’re impressive song-writers and powerful performers. Check out the tracks from their split with Lentic Waters:
 


 

TRAINWRECK

Trainwreck are another German band, whose members seem to be scattered among various cities. After poking around their Facebook page I learned that their latest release is a five-song EP that debuted in June 2011, titled if there is light, it will find you, which is a line from a Charles Bukowski poem called “The Harder They Try”.

The EP is streaming on Bandcamp, and I listened to the whole thing this morning and liked it quite a lot. Trainwreck deliver a combination of battering hardcore brawn and ringing “post-metal” guitar melodies, with jugular-exploding vocals. It’s galvanizing music that punches hard but also sends streams of memorable melody spiraling through your mind. The EP is available on CD and vinyl from PunkOrder and can be streamed on Bandcamp, so listen up:
 

LENTIC WATERS

Lentic Waters came together in 2010, and they’ve produced a self-titled 2011 debut album, which is a free download on Bandcamp, as well as three tracks for that split with Planks discussed above — “FrÅh Åbt sich (nicht)”, “Eingemauert”, and “Menschlichkeit”. And holy fuck, this music turns out to be awesome, too.

Lentic Waters unleashes a hurricane of physically moving hardcore vehemence coupled with ravaging melodies and a heavy fog of bleak ambience. Big walls of harrowing noise merge with mesmerizing instrumental breaks, producing an experience that’s both savage and hard to forget. Check it out:

“FrÅh Åbt sich (nicht)”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/B1-Lentic-Waters-FrÅh-Åbt-sich-nicht.mp3|titles=Lentic Waters – FrÅh Åbt sich (nicht)]
 

“Eingemauert”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/B2-Lentic-Waters-Eingemauert.mp3|titles=Lentic Waters – Eingemauert]
 

“Menschlichkeit”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/B3-Lentic-Waters-Menschlichkeit.mp3|titles=Lentic Waters – Menschlichkeit]
 

KNIFEFIGHT

While prowling around Trainwreck’s Facebook page I came across a link to a music video for yet another German band called Knifefight, which includes one of Trainwreck’s members, Marc. Knifefight describe themselves as “four punks playing folk”. In Knifefight, Marc plays clawhammer banjo and sings. I like me some banjo, so I watched and listened to that video, and I thought it would be kind of a chill way to end this post. So here you go (and to stream and download Knifefight’s album, use this link, which will take you to Bandcamp):
 


 

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