Jun 182020
 


photo by Basti Grim

 

Of all the songs on High Fighter‘s tremendous second album Champain (released last summer by Argonauta Records), “Before I Disappear” is one of the most punishing and emotionally piercing. It’s a bruising, battering, and compulsively head-moving experience, coupled with melodies of searing impact. It showcases the whole band’s riveting power but perhaps especially the gripping intensity of Mona Miluski‘s voice in all of its dramatically changing manifestations. No wonder that the band chose it as the subject of the music video we’re premiering today — a video that provides a gripping presentation of a transfixing song.

Champain represents a new chapter in the band’s evolution, revealing a coherent (and heavy-as-hell) amalgamation of contrasting sensations that draws upon elements of doom, sludge, stoner, psychedelia, blues, and more. The changes will be quite evident if you compare it to the band’s 2014 debut EP (Goat Ritual) and their 2016 debut album Scars & Crosses, and it represents a great leap ahead. “Before I Disappear” doesn’t completely reveal all of the album’s many facets, but it definitely displays the marked increase in brutality, ferocity, and emotional darkness, as well as the penetrating intensity of the song-writing. Continue reading »

Jun 202019
 

 

The music of the German band High Fighter now exists in apparently opposed but interchangeable states. Rather than juxtapose their contrasting stylistic ingredients like hard veering lane changes on some musical Autobahn, however, they’ve created songs that are more like the confluence of river systems, all joining to flow powerfully forward in an intermingling of upstream sources.

The band’s new album, Champain, will be released on July 26th by Argonauta Records. As a follow-on to their 2014 EP The Goat Ritual and their 2016 debut album Scars & Crosses, it is itself the product of new soundscapes through which the band have passed, as if other tributaries have joined this river in new convergences on its rush to the sea. The Goat Ritual has been left far behind, and Champain certainly isn’t Scars & Crosses Part 2 either. The song we present today, “Dead Gift“, makes that plain, and could stand as a proud emblem of this river’s new course. Continue reading »

Jun 082016
 

High Fighter - promo

 

(In this post Comrade Aleks combines excerpts from his interview with the German band High Fighter and thoughts about their debut album Scars & Crosses, due for release on June 10 by Svart Records.)

Mona Miluski (vocals) and Christian Pappas (guitars) started together in the heavy stoner band A Million Miles, but the band split up in early 2013, only a couple of days right after they released a first full-length album and after they had been together for more than 5 years.

It took Christian and Mona almost a year to get back on their feet in music. In the beginning of 2014, they started to look into founding a new project, when Ingwer Boysen joined ’em as the lead guitarist. His current band at that time, Buffalo Hump, had no singer at that point, so there was a bassist and a drummer left — all they needed to complete a new band line-up. So it was Ingwer who came up with the idea of bringing Constantin (bass) and Thomas (drums) into the new project that later would become High Fighter. Continue reading »

Oct 132015
 

HIGH FIGHTER_7233_©  by Frau Siemers Fotografiert
photo © by Frau Siemers Fotografiert

(We present Comrade Aleks’ interview with Mona Miluski, vocalist for Germany’s High Fighter.)

High Fighter is a fresh sludgy formation from Germany. Just a year ago the band recorded their first EP under sacramental title The Goat Ritual, and take a look – they’re already going on tour with Ahab in October! If you’re ready for an intransigent sludge attack then check our interview with Mona Miluski, High Fighter frontwoman.

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Hail Mona! How are you there? I’d like to ask you to shed some light on High Fighter’s origin, so I hope that you have nothing against a few questions about it.

Absolutely not, keep them coming. Thanks for having us on No Clean Singing. Continue reading »