15 years after a first review on a Stahlschlag release (Acousticophobie / Hypervoxx Records – 2007) on our site, here we go again and Sebastian Sünkler's project has meanwhile become a constant and reliable supplier of energetic and straight produced rhythmically Industrial/Powernoise music. There's without doubt a buzz behind this project and Sebastian has become one of the artists to follow, even if his chapter of being a signed artist to Crunch Pod didn't end up well. Nowadays back and producing again single-handedly, Sebastian's new album “A Zone of Silence” is finally out.

What you'll get can't be called silence at all. Meticulously Sebastian installs layered, rusty walls of drones and Ambient-like sound experiments to combine them with a straight, variable, almost 4-on-the-floor rhythm- and percussion set. Also not to forget: bring on the Noise! Synth-textures and percussion works in Sebastian's sound expression are often genre-typical distorted, mangled and overdriven, just with the right mood to follow-up some idols like Xotox, Synapscape and/or artists more based into the danceable TBM-genre like S.A.M. or Noisuf-X.

But generally, “A Zone of Silence” has asides the usual Noise-driven action some remarkable elements to offer, which are drifting away from the expected noisy course. First audio sign before the release of this album was a collaboration track with the young German female Industrial-/Noise-artist Ultra. The track “Doomed” with the hypnotically vocal performance of Lena Heiler (Ultra) reminds a bit on some PAL works (“Gelöbnis”) and Lena in this hypnotic, monotonous vocal style qoutes on phrases of Robert Falles, but the difference is, that her voice content wasn't sampled. “Doomed” has been released via Bandcamp in July 2022 and thanks to Lena's input and help into this fruitful cooperation also a video clip can be found on YouTube.

A further vocal collaboration can be discovered already with the opening track “Dawn of Man” by The Netherlands-based artist Mikrometrik. That's a relative slow stalking, rather more driven by the scratchy metallic sound layers tune. Whoever said, that Rhythic Powernoise has to be minimal and limited produced? By discovering the wide-spreading sound the best under good pair pair of headphones it can be noticed, that Stahlschlag's music is rather the opposite.

Outstanding tune to me is “Crushed March” with a drastically vocal performance by the Hamburg-based Dark Electro project Morbid Echo. That one with its rather moderate 110 bpm should set fire under dancefloors. Generally these guest appearances for providing some vocal parts bring in a lot of diversity to break with the one-dimensional sound expression path, but nevertheless also Sebastian himself allows it to add in more genre-expanding elements into his arrangements. “Sign” for example impresses with its Tribal-driven, forward-marching rhythm section, but especially the carefully installed synth-textures add a nice variation and rather melodic input to the satisfaction of the listener.

Stahlschlag in the year 2022 sounds still motivated and has successfully expanded its own sound plethora and Sebastian has integrated it successfully into his compositions. Release date of this new album is set to tomorrow, 27th of August 2022 (yes, unbelievable – I am right in time).

A limited edition of a CD copy of this album (only 50 pc) should be also available but it seems necessary to get in contact with Sebastian directly if this physical item is still available. Also to point out the good bliss around Sebastian's work, please be informed, that he has decided to donate the profits out of the Bandcamp download sales to a relief organization called Equiwent, www.equiwent.org . Since this album will be available there for a “pay-what-you-want” procedure, you should think about this unique and exemplary action with your next purchase.