Blending doom, post-punk, and driving krautrock in a “dynamic, hypnotic maelstrom”, after a six year wait, Cold In Berlin will issue their fifth album, Wounds – Described “as heavy as it is haunting” on 7th November via New Heavy Sounds.
“Wounds is a series of songs about the different ways people live with and process ‘the wounds’ of their lives,” explained vocalist Maya Berlin. “A strange celebration of that formative pain we have all experienced in some way. The loss and joy of survival – the celebration of finding others like us, the gift of knowing life comes after fire.”
Out now, is the bands second single, ‘The Stranger’, taken from the lonplayer, and it is a song that is meant to allow for multiple interpretations according to Berlin.
“Perhaps it is a song about addiction- the wound that doesn’t heal. The way the focus of an addiction sings to you, searching you out, twisting and flowing through the body- whispering beneath the skin until you answer the call and find home once more.
“Perhaps it is a song about finding your place in the world- groups of people watching and experiencing something meaningful together- a way to heal and close old wounds. How live music can stay with you even as you are separated from it. How finding the strange songs, sang in dark places can actually bring you home to yourself.
“Or perhaps it is a song about that sharp kind of love at first sight that can overwhelm, offering freedom and constraint all at once. When you are drawn to that person that you know can destroy you, but you cease to matter because they are somehow instantly your home and only resting place.
“‘The Stranger’ can be all these things- a healer, a cage, an addiction, but it is most definitely a call into the darkness, reaching out to the listener to join us in the howl of life, to wake up the bones and the skin. Be with us in the noise and know that whatever it is that led you to us, we are grateful you are home.”
You judge for yourselves, you can listen to ‘The Stranger’ her and check out the video below.
Wounds was recorded by Mike Bew, on location at Foel Studio. The band could be found working deep into the witching hours, experimenting with new sounds and filling the valleys with cantankerous wails of sound, bursting from amps borrowed from My Bloody Valentine.
“The Welsh countryside has a mystical quality to it,” said guitarist Adam Richardson. “We recorded in a deep, dark valley; misty days and shooting stars at night. You could wander through nearby woods and stone circles during breaks. Foel Studios is woven into this setting with a transcendence of its own – its storied history includes sessions by Electric Wizard, Hawkwind and The Fall.”
Synthesisers on the album are arranged by Berlin-based Bow Church, an influential figure in the dark electronic scene and a longtime collaborator of the band. His work weaves icy and atmospheric textures into the songs, layering complexity that demands repeat listens. The horns on ‘12 Crosses’ were recorded by a high profile jazz musician who appears anonymously due to label ties.
While meticulously crafted, Wounds is said to capture the visceral energy of Cold In Berlin’s live shows. And is their first studio album since 2019’s Rituals Of Surrender, and the 2024 EP The Body is The Wound. Featuring free-jazz brass sections, off-beat structures, techno rhythms, and soaring synths, Wounds is the band’s most ambitious release yet.
Born in East London in 2010, Cold In Berlin quickly graduated from the local scene’s fleeting gothic revival into one of the UK underground’s most revered live acts. Fronted by the commanding and fierce vocal performances of Berlin, the band forges dark post-punk, doom, and krautrock into a singular sonic force — equal parts raw power and bleak beauty, as heavy as it is haunting.
Their debut album, Give Me Walls (2010), was named an Album of the Year by Artrocker magazine, announcing Cold In Berlin as a vital new voice in alternative music. Signing with Candlelight Records (Universal), the band released And Yet (2012) and The Comfort Of Loss and Dust (2015), pushing their earlier post-punk sound into darker, heavier territory, with major UK airplay and magazine acclaim,
By the time of 2019’s Rituals Of Surrender (New Heavy Sounds), their transformation from punky noiseniks to post-metal powerhouse was complete. Nearly a decade on from their formation, the band was immortalised in the British Library’s Sound Archive, following their inclusion in its major exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination.
After a period in the shadows during the global pause, Cold In Berlin re-emerged in 2024 with The Body is the Wound EP. Incorporating mechanical, factory-floor rhythms and icy string machines into their wall of noise, it established a new blueprint for their evolving sound. With their fifth album, Wounds, Cold in Berlin are likely to deliver on the promise of all that came before.
Wounds can be ordered at Bandcamp.com and here digitally.
First single ‘Hangman’s Daughter’ led the charge back in September and is still available to stream and download, with Berlin commenting: “’Hangman’s Daughter’ is an unrequited love song. A woman was loved but could not love in return so she is drowned by the man who loves her. She is not lost though – She haunts the killer and he can’t escape her. The title hints at the past, but actually this is a very current issue for women today – how to literally survive when they can’t love a man who has decided he only wants her.”
COLD IN BERLIN LIVE UK DATES
7 November – Coventry, The Arches
8 November – Leeds, The Library
22 November – Sheffield, the Corporation (with NFD)
23 November – London, the Garage (with NFD)
31 January – London, the Lexington
