It’s frequently the third album that decides the future direction of a band. While the debut and follow-up albums are usually considered to mark the beginning of a hopeful career, the third album indicates where the journey is heading.
With their most recent release, their third album Chaos, the band Schattenmann, helmed by vocalist Frank Herzig, prove: the content of their music is getting tougher, more metal-oriented, more multi-faceted and more uncompromising.
Concurrent with the album’s release comes title trac ‘Chaos’ out now as a single, along with an official video that you can watch right her at RAMzine.
“Chaos has us deliberately expand our sound to include modern and more original elements, said vocalist Frank Herzig. “We don’t want to limit ourselves musically, but have included metal and industrial influences in our new material. The beginnings of this development were already present on our 2018 debut Licht An, and one year later on Epidemie. Chaos sees us take it to the extreme and look beyond the obvious.”
The singer continued: “Due to the fact that almost all new songs were composed on the guitar, the material sounds more metal-oriented, heavier, you could say: it’s more crash, bang, wallop!”
In line with its musically harsher pace, the lyrics on Chaos are also direct and straight-in-your-face. “Socio-critical topics are nothing new for us, ‘Generation Sex’ and ‘Amok’ on our debut already touched on a number of sore points,” Herzig explained, “but this time the lyrics are even more focussed and direct. We question things, comment on negative developments, excesses, the underbelly of society, ranging from social deficiencies to self-hatred.”
Here he refers to tracks like ‘Cosima’ with its underlying question of whether love is still needed in the digital age.
Chaos has sharpened the profile of Herzig and his band mates Jan Suk (guitar), Luke Shook (bass) and Nils Kinzig (drums), refining their musical and thematic standards, and on the track ‘Spring’ they’ve entered into a collaboration with J.B.O.’s Veit Kutzer and Hannes Holzmann. “Musicians know each other, and nobody got past J.B.O. when we were younger. So, we asked them to guest on our single. I think their voices give ‘Spring’ amazing power,” said Herzig.
You can order the Chaos album here.
