OK......I have no life, I already did the translation for all the non-german speaking BS fans who get to read this. (hehehe......Brainstorm wrote a song about me, it's called "Dying Outside" - read on to understand
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On 16th April Brainstorm invited into the studio to introduce the first finished songs of the new disc "Soul Temptation" to the presspeople who had gathered.
Unfortuntely the band (that already had been in the studio for 14 days) has not finished the mix yet, so only 6 of the 12 songs were being played. But those 6 songs were killer! Brainstorm became much more varied compared to the predecessor. And Andy B. Franck promises: "The album will be even more varied. "The Leading" is very groovy, "Rising" rather mystic, "Soul Temptation" is a very epic, longer track. The spread will be widened compared to what you've just heard. I mean, the only point of criticism we had to bear with "Metus Mortis" was that the disc sounded relatively monotonous. Compared with that "Ambiguity" was much more varied. But "Metus Mortis" showed the band at that point and now the band is different. We still had no intention to write a ballad though. If we had wanted to have 12 speed killers we would have done so. But the variation does meet with our fans."
Thematically the band orientates very much to real life: ""Highs Without Lows" is a sort of stock-taking. There are highs and lows in life. Where a door shuts another one opens. There's no reason to throw your life away." says Andy B. Franck. "And when you look at the titles, we have used rather positive names, except for maybe "Dying Outside". And also the lyrics are build up in a positive way. Even if they are about corruption and such topics. For the lyrics there are also extra liner notes. For example, "Dying Outside" deals with people who live in virtual world. You inner self practically wastes away because you only sit in front of the computer. "To The Head" deals with a similar topic. There are people who live out their aggressions or fantasies on the internet but are weak persons in real life. A human being should not define itself through emails. In the end, the human is decisive and not some letters on the screen. That's something that happened to me in my circle of friends. There are people that have no problem at all with while they're standing before you but once they sit in front of the computer they start shooting the wildest insults. There are a lot of things that happened to me or I thought of recently which influence the lyrics. The deception during the election in Florida is an example. But the lyrics aren't aimed at a single topic alone."
But back to the music. "Highs Without Lows" starts off with a brutal, fat riffing and promises an interesting listening session. With "Doorway To Survive" it gets even more heavy before with "Fading" a more epic song follows, that also is the most calm song of the album but still cannot be entitled as a ballad. Next up is a more traditional song "Dying Outside" before with "To The Head" the fastest song is being played. Then we listened to the opener of "Trinity Of Lust" which is called "Shiva's Tears". Right after the far eastern intro the song changes into a real heavy killer with a lot of power. The idea with that far eastern topic keeps Brainstorm busy for quite some time now and the reason is at hand:
"I have found sites from travellers on the internet. They contained pictures, noises, small videos and recordings from markets done with dictationg machines. That gave the band the idea.", says Andy B. Franck. "Unfortunately we haven't been there ourselves. But it would have been really cool to do the presentation of the CD in India. I think it's just interesting and it also suits our music because it was there before. It all started with "Maharaja Palace" on "Ambiguity". That's when we've already did something similar. And on "Metus Mortis" we continued with "Checkmate In Red". The story of "Trintiy Of Lust" doesn't have anything to do with that but those songs were the basis. We wanted to do this with several songs. Not as a concept album but to give it more depth. And also to add more of the sounds so that you are somewhere else while listening to the record. The story is about Gods and historically verfied places but in a story that is made up. We wanted to do something really intense."
And that's something they also achieved with the closing bonustrack. The old classic "Amarillo" from Tony Christy had to be in for that. "We didn't want to cover a popsong" says Andy. "If you read interviews with pop musicians, they don't have a soft spot for metal or hardrock. And that's why I don't like the idea to support them by covering their songs. Of course you can say 'but Tony Christy won't be the biggest metal fan either' but the music that has been written back then was much more rock'n'roll." And Todde adds: "In the past we also have already covered the track "Wooly Bully" which derives from the same time. We believe that suits us. And one should not always take everything too serious. We didn't do this because we were lacking songs. The record lasts for over an hour. We like the song and have fun with it. One should not overrate the song but also not the other way round." And how Andy remarks: "It's simply a bonustrack. It doesn't really belong to the record. But it shows the feeling that we had. One can get annoyed over the "shalalala" or not. We thought it was funny. And we liked recording it."
And that they recorded their new album with a lot of love and heart blood is certainly beyond question.
~ originally written by Georg Weihrauch on
www.powermetal.de as linked in one of my posts above,
freely translated on a sunday morning by yours truly
