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.

Jeff Danos and his pretty much under the radar flying Testube-project has always had the ability to come out with a blast with well received reactions and reputation by press media, fans and supporters – and to vanish unfortunately soon afterwards into obscurity. It happens often that music-projects seem to be misunderstood or get at least ignored because they tend to express their musically style too ambitious for the listener. Testube has never been the same-sounding band project like your beloved daily burger for a dinner, as diversity and style-breaking changes of Jeff's musically outfit have always been occurred. To mix it all up out of multiple Electronic music styles like Ambient, Trance, Industrial, Synthpop, Glitch, IDM and/or EBM, Jeff is a manic-possessed explorer of new and undiscovered sound ideas and Testube has always been a hodgepodge providing a surplus of unpredictable and innovative ideas on the hunt for stylistic reinvention.

Already established in 1994, Testube has had its most recognized output with the 12-tracker release“Bioplaza”, a highly successful album out in 1999 and the addition to the DSBP Records roster to the end of the same year. “Bioplaza” was kind of Jeff's career buzzer which consequently continued with the release of the full-length remix album entitled “Reconstructive Surgery” in 2000, which featured several diverse remix contributions by among others Pain Station, Biopsy, Thine Eyes, Oneiroid Psychosis or Austria's Trylok. The buzz around this project was vital, as “Reconstructive Surgery” received clubs and radio stations across the globe and remained in the CMJ national RPM top-20 charts for six weeks, peaking at the No. 4 chart position in September 2000 side by side with such global players like Juno Reactor or A Guy Called Gerald. Also a further limited edition of the “Bioplaza” album (“Bioplaza Revisited”) out in late 2000 with additional remix works and previously unreleased tracks got released.

Three years later Jeff returned with his all new follow-up studio album “Corporation”, which couldn't follow the same successful course which “Bioplaza” pursued before. “Corporation” wasn't at all a weak album – actually with Jeff's well-known meticulously programming skills and a controversial idea to reflect an inside look at the dysfunctional clockwork of the "American Dream" and its dependence on corporate anti-justice, brought him a lot of well-balanced reviews while the club-goers almost went their ears and faces off regarding Jeff's ongoing attempt to hunt for innovation and to push Testube towards to lesser accessible areas of sound-design and programming skills.

It took some years with relocations, soundtrack works, and a few remixes until Jeff returned in 2008 with the establishing of his own label Glim Records and a handful of releases like Type001's last album “Finished Business”, a few Lowhero.dll releases (featuring Jeff's Glim Records co-label founder Jonathan Chalker) and his very own Testube-project with the “Covert” EP and later on in 2010 with the full-length album “Off Purpose”. Accompanied by a remix-album soon afterwards (“Unintentional”), Jeff decided to take a radical break and to live his life in a simpler environment. He constructed his own off-grid cabin the Ozark mountains, where he experimented without running water and electricity. During this time, Testube's output was limited due to the difficult conditions but Jeff continued to write new music. A handful of these new tracks appeared on the “Atavistic” EP in 2015.

At least in 2019 and the hit of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jeff decided that he had gained enough perspective from his simpler living and returned. With a filled storage of many raw tracks conducted during his abstinence from electricity, he has chosen 17 of them to release them under this new “Backwater” album. Alex Stilts, known for his involvement musically in Rekt / also label co-founder of Point Source Electronic Arts, of Orbit Room Audio has provided the mastering process in all brilliance.

Be assured that Testube in the year 2022 won't stop his hunt for diversity when it comes to get an overview on these 17 tracks of “Backwater”. The title track kicks the album relatively straight off with a breathtaking quality. “Backwater” impresses with it's Glitch-laden percussion elements and the overall futuristic, Industrial-like outfit with multiple usage of vocal samples and layered synth-textures. Jeff's vocal performance additionally avoids pseudo-aggressive outbreaks and comes out relatively laid-back. If one of the new tracks reminds at closest to the “Bioplaza” era, then this one would it be.

In a relative comparable style we have with “Backyard Burner” another favorite with it well-thought rhythmic straightness woven in a smooth and catchy, almost Synthpop-like melodic construction. The track “Themself” differs with its nightly bass guitar loop leading the musically spectrum and seems to be a kind of a tribute to the rather “organic” sounding era out of the Glim Records years. Deeply impressed I am personally also with the dark and ominous sounding, voice-sample driven Ambient-tunes like “Big White Lies (at Standing Rock)” or “Arkanstayed”.

All in all, Testube's latest album impresses once again with a widely installed diversity out of all thinkable Electronic music styles and the indispensable will to provide the listener music to expand ones horizon. Jeff's programming skills often result in multi-layered textures and unique sound experiences which can be hardly compared to any other artist. Even if a few of the tracks have been in the works for longer than 10 years under limited circumstances, there's no limitation noticeable when it belongs on the quality of Jeff music expression. This is purest art of sound design, futuristic and ground-breaking to the same time.

17 tracks are included plus a hidden, rather improvisational tune live recorded under the circumstances of the COVID lock-down. In addition to a digital release available at multiple streaming services, a limited edition cassette release can be ordered too (25 exemplars) via Jeff's Bandcamp account with handmade hydro-dipped cases. Surely soon this cassette release will be a collector's item.

The raw, old-school EBM-duo Wülf7 is one of the newest forces of young and talented EBM / Dark Electro music projects out of the grandmother-state of this music style, Belgium. Consisting of the both members C.VII and Bwulf they've already received some promising reactions by their audience simply for their often happening, energetic live performances. This productive duo has played on several festivals in Belgium and Germany like the legendary “Familientreffen”, “E-Only Festival” in Deuzen (Germany) or the the highly recognized “Porta Nigra” festival in Aarschot (Belgium) last year. Now this pack of wolves takes further steps in their development to gain wider recognition as well as to increase their recording quality. Their first full-length album “Dark Hate” has been mastered by no one else than Vincent Uhlig (2nd Face) in his GVU-Mastering studio, has been re-printed and it's meanwhile officially available via the German retailer Poponaut.

“I Don't Want (Anymore)” is their newest effort, an EP release with 5 new recordings and 6 remix contributions by such prominent projects like Plastic Noise Experiment, TC75 or Sleepwalk. Asides the usual Bandcamp downloading possibility, there's also available a strictly limited CD edition. Once this one is gone, it will be gone forever without a chance of reprinting.
Although these both wolves see themselves rather influenced by various genres and they call their style “Dark Electro Body Melancholic Sounds”, the typical old-school EBM sound with its “straight-in-your-face”-attitude is their leading and almost overwhelming style of expression. Wülf7 are offering the whole adrenaline-driven pallet with soaring shouts of vocalist Bwulf as well as sweat-driving kick-and-snare works and mechanical, speedy thirty-two-second bass-line sequences mostly provided by C.VII. The reference to some Dark Electro-related sound ideas are evident but to reach a wider musically spectrum it still needs a continuation in their development process.

So the first two tracks of this EP “I Don't Want (Anymore)” and “Morbide” follow that straight, bassy outfit with a driving 4/4-on-the-floor-attitude and even the third track “W.A.W.W.A.” does not at all maintain the faster, percussive style. This one is my personal favorite track of their new compositions here because of its more elaborated synth arrangements through several voice samples and a brighter, layered, rather towards to the Dark Electro-genre based sound expression. “EBM Nation” is at least what you should expect from the title, another smashing and kicking track to save your next body-party. Also the collaborative track with German project T.A.N.K. with its dual vocal performance of Mr. Bwulf and Mr. Tankman won't leave out any wishes for a harder stomping tune. These five original tracks then got extended by some solid remix contributions which add a wider spectrum to the straightforward style of Wülf7.

Tino Claus out of the Amnistia achiever has put his hands on “W.A.W.W.A.” under his solo-project TC75 and surprises with his concentration to point out the ominous-sounding, layered facet of this track. Hungary's First Aid 4 Souls, to me one of the most underrated Electronic music projects has reinterpreted the title track “I Don't Want (Anymore)” and adds with several dramatic lead sounds an ideal balance to the raw and pounding environment of the original.
Bruno Ruch of Sleepwalk impresses with his skillfully integrated post-modern sounding bass line sequences, which offer an outstanding contrast to the usual Wülf7 sound. Sweden's trio Astma then returns on their “Morbide”remix to the raw and straight produced EBM formula with their close to Pouppee Fabrikk-sounding bass line sequences. Finally two German projects join the scenery of remix contributions with the legendary Plastic Noise Experience and To Avoid. PNE's remix concentrates to leave the title track straight and rather minimal reproduced, while To Avoid impresses with additional clap percussion sounds and a fat wall of pulsating bass line sequences – especially the last-mentioned Eastern Germany-based trio has been far too long off without any release for longer than a decade.

Wülf7 claim themselves of not being a perfect symbiosis of an EBM / Electro / Industrial music-project and they still have to learn and develop. But they are growing, this pack of wolves gets stronger and stronger with every new release and also this EP turns out to be helpful. They will increase in their style and with their action-driven and energetic live performances they should be able to reach a wider audience.

3 years after the release of their highly recognized last album “Black Halo” and its companion “Black Halo Encores”, the German duo Amnistia returns with a new studio album. “We All Bleed Red” has been a long and widely promoted item via social media during the last couple of weeks and months with the intelligent usage of a mouthwatering cover artwork around this release. Inspired by the works of the French artist Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (1832 – 1883), who has made himself a highly recognized name as a print maker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor, the cover art for „We All Bleed Red“ is pretty much dedicated to the small family of the Dark Electro music genre.

It's that sort of a mystic, almost biblical-styled black/white art so typically for this music scene, quite related to a “Where-Angels-Fear-To-Chainsaw” Mentallo-/Puppy-an vision. And of course, the white upper-case letters “Amnistia” accented by the red rectangle has the right and familiar effect – that's a brilliant and clever realization of an art idea and works excellent also on shirts. And so “We All Bleed Red” is available in several different editions: the normal CD release (limited to 200 exemplars) features 12 tracks.

If not already sold-out while I am writing this review, there's additionally available a limited DCD edition in a digipak with a black and a red disc. This edition is part of the "We All Bleed Red” box-set and won't be sold separately, with the exception of the digital download via Bandcamp. The strictly limited box-set features asides its special packaging with stickers, photos, etc. an exclusive designed t-shirt and a tape with several live recordings out of their long career entitled “We've Always Bled Red”. Due to a constant demand further actions are already in the pipeline: Until the end of 2022 or with the start of 2023 there should be out the release of a double-LP production of the album with each 100 exemplars in red / 100 exemplars in white vinyls. Contact the band via above given addresses and ask for availability of their merch and gimmicks around this release.

Out of tradition with all Amnistia album releases before, also this album starts with a short and ominous sounding instrumental tune, “InitNine”. Second track then gives a first sweat-driving energizer with “Truth / Hurts / Lie” with its rotating bass line sequences and multiple steel-/metal-percussion elements. Clearly composed in a classic verse- / recognizable chorus-manner in their very European-sounding outfit, this is an ideal and appreciated Amnistia-track which has become somehow familiar if you've been already into their music.

It follows the title-track with Tino Claus' rough and painfully articulated vocals driven by monotonous and rather lofi-oriented synthesizer arrangements. I've heard already a few critically voices to this track and also to me this is a new and undiscovered expression of their music. However I am pretty much excited by this one. It's not only Tino's tormented vocal treatment – I enjoyed a lot Stefan Schötz' ability to leave this track in its raw and analogue-sounding attitude drifting a bit away from their otherwise invariable perfect production quality.

“The Hook” and “Dark” are two of their tracks on this album which they've decided to release as teaser tunes via their Bandcamp resource and both are drifting a bit closer to the works of some Canadian-based idols. A clear and intended installed Puppy-an influence especially with the opulent layered pad sounds on “Dark” as well as with Tino's Ogre-like vocal performance can't be contested here. With the mid-tempo tune “E.Y.S.I.D” they give us another perfectly arranged Dark Electro-track with a clear, almost “singing-along-the-line” chorus and the tastefully installed pads and layers – Stefan's programming abilities in a best mode, to me another highlight of this album.

“Thoughts” increases the speed again and invites for some dancefloor-action while “Caged” is one of those earlier released tunes which has received a “fan-made” video clip by no one else than Martin Sane of the Fix8:Sed8 fame. “Dissonantia” then is the track which starts to attack the often proclaimed “Fixi-throne” a bit with its multiple vocal samples and layered arrangement over the whole track. Two musically surprises then can be discovered with the both remaining tracks of the main album. First of “The Sinner” tries to integrate huge sounding, almost brass-like synthesizer leads as being the driving element. To me it sounds a bit comparable to some elements out of the Synthwave-genre, but actually I am not too much fond of this, because it turns out a bit too repetitive as well as it overtaxes it in the length of the whole track.

Then comes the album closer entitled “Dern” - that track which drifts the most away from the usual Amnistia-style. It's a dark droning, Tribal-inspired instrumental tune filled with several dark synth lead and pad-sounds, multiple harsher-than-usual-percussion elements and an overwhelming haunting atmosphere. Surely an experiment to place such a track into an album concept, but it acts well here as being the closing title.

If you're not a purchaser of the box-set you'll have to went over to Bandcamp to pick-up digitally the content of the second disc, but it's worth any investment. It starts with a “Redux” version of “We All Bleed Red” which is compared to the original interesting from its differently sound rhythm section – but I nevertheless enjoy the original a bit more. A “Radio Edit” of “Truth / Hurts / Lie” with a shorter playing time then follows but adds nothing remarkable new to an overall good Amnistia track. Then starts a illustrious row of remix contributions with Fix8:Sed8, Tino Claus' both projects TC75 and ner.ogris, the Munich-based duo and last years' shooting stars G.O.L.E.M., Placebo Effect, Mildreda, The Opposer Divine, Pyrroline and Terminal State. Lots of different sounding interpretations of the original Amnistia tracks are inviting the listener to dive into the deep and dark see of this music genre.

Fix8:Sed8's remix on “Dissonatia” roughens the smoother sounding original with its multiple percussion elements plus it adds that typical Puppy-an factor to it. Interesting also to see that the duo of Pyrroline remixes the same track but only under the usage of the files from Fix8:Sed8 – it's a remix of a remix, if you like so. Actually that Pyrroline version of “Dissonantia” sounds to me a bit more elaborated. It's hard to tap on a personal remix favorite on here as they all offer intelligent produced stuff which fits well to the whole release, but the surprise belongs to me personally on Tino Claus' project ner.ogris, as this one gives a much better constituted remix of “The Sinner”, which shows the hidden potential behind this track. This remix to me matches the original composition.

To sum it up and only concentrating on the 12 tracks of the main album, “We All Bleed Red” currently still grows on me. There's of course a lot of potential still to discover and yet I feel myself uncomfortable to start comparisons to their “Black Halo” album back in 2019, which is undoubtedly a milestone of the Dark Electro / Industrial music genre. Since it was relatively quiet in the first half of this year regarding releases of this special niche in the Electronic music-driven genre, then this album can be seen as the undoubtedly highlight so far, while I wouldn't go that far, that this one matches with “Black Halo”.

Although picked-up with a license deal directly from the Oklahoma-based label Re:Mission Entertainment, this one is a TAPE release provided to us by the young German tape label Single Speed Tapes. This label founded by Sören Otto has – you'll get it – specialized itself to bring out some hard-to-find or re-releases of one or another treasure from (among others) Amnistia, Wermut or Terminal State.

As we know out of the early days of EBM, Electronica, Synthpop, Wave, Dark Electro and/or Industrial – however you like to call it – tapes have been the to-go-medium for young and unrecognized band projects to present their first recordings to their small audience and to grab some attention of the underground record labels. It has been the days when no one was able to afford a vinyl production, or CD writers have been a far too expensive investment. With the beginning of the PC technology and so the rise of CDR writers, tapes have lost their meaning in almost all style of electronic-drive music, maybe with the exception of a very few Powernoise- / Rhythmic Noise productions which have been always used this medium as a possible, special packaging item. Then “life” came back into tapes with the often proclaimed retro orientation to the 80s not only in music production but also in art and technology. It's still a satisfying impression to hold a piece of hardware in your hands instead to search for digital mp3 files in various areas of your PC-driven home entertainment or mobile phones.

Same here and limited to only 60 hand-numbered exemplars, but with Kitty Kosmonaut we have prominent band members with Dwayne Dassing of Mentallo & the Fixer and John Bustamante of Fektion Fekler. Re:Mission Entertainment has released this album already in 2015 with a limited run of CD's as well as digitally via their Bandcamp web resource, but nevertheless this release went completely under the radar of the audience. Regarding the stardom of the protagonists behind, this surprises negatively.

Both Dwayne and John are providing the music with synth programming, sequencing, etc., while it is John who supplies also his vocals on the tracks. For both elaborated musicians this new project seems to be an ideal playing field for experiments and to test out diverse forms of synthesis. You shouldn't expect an international rising top-notch album production in vein of the heydays of both musician under their Mentallo / Fekler - pseudonyms. Instead you'll get a dark-minded form of experimental Electronica which avoids it to be sorted into genre-boundaries.

Tracks like “Sum it Up” can entertain with it's clear Dark Electro structures, while such tunes like “Zero Age” with its noisy bells-like archaic sound outbursts are drifting away from any conventional path. Also don't expect a release driven by adrenaline, sweat and muscles formulated with dancefloor-compatibility, mostly the featured tracks here remain slow to mid-tempo and concentrate rather to focus on the Electronica elements. It's a bit like Mainesthai in psychosis, not that release to find immediately entrance to.

This 12 tracks do need some spins in your old Walkman or tape-deck, but its worth it to discover the talent behind the both musicians. Globally a fine addition to the growing discography of this young and promising tape-label. This one shouldn't be sold out yet, also via Bandcamp under the Re:Mission Entertainment resource it should be still possible to purchase this collectors item. Make sure to contact Single Speed Tapes through their Bigcartel store above in the links.