By the pricking of my plums, something German this way comes. Never was a fan of Shakespeare, call me a literary imbecile if you like but he was just damn boring, his comedies are not even funny (as a conversation in the pub pointed out recently) and his drama just wasn’t for me. Macbeth was however the one text I had no choice but to study back at school and at least it had the requisite gore quota and accompanying curses in production to make it a bit interesting. Anyway Macbeth is also the name of various bands most of whom seem to have split up. This is one of the couple who have not and are not to be confused with the Italian female fronted combo who also sound quite good.
Gotteskrieger is German through and through, certainly as far as lyrics and song titles are concerned. The band formed way back in 1985 cut a demo and then another one after a brief break of 18 years in 2003! To be fair the main problem was the fact that the group were East German and the police were not fans to put it mildly. They had problems at concerts which turned into near riots and drummers incarcerated and then the suicide of former singer Detlev Wittenburg to contend with so it is no surprise that there was such a long gap. They got back in 1993 and then another tragedy struck when drummer Rico Sauermann killed himself, jumping off a high rise in Frankfurt. Finally they reformed in 2002 and released debut (you could not make this shit up) self titled album in 2006 and this is the follow up which brings us bang up to date.
I do encounter a lot of bands who are German and sing in their own language, the problem I have is not the lack of understanding but generally that a lot of what I hear lacks balls. Well Macbeth do not fit in this category, they have big iron balls musically and Gottekrieger (God’s Warrior or Crusader and if that means the group have Christian connotations my lack of speaking German means they escape my wrath) is a pounding metallic feast that all metal heads should appreciate. ‘Unter Dem Beil’ literally pounds in and swaggers away with meaty jagged riffs forged in steel. Vocals are clean but with a growl about them, if you can speak German you are going to be able to follow them clearly and there is plenty of good solid meaty hooks here to literally rock out to.
Although I love a bit of In Extremo and bands of their ilk, I do find the whole use of traditional instruments such as pipes and all that to be a bit clichéd as far as the majority of metal bands are concerned in Germany. Again this is something Macbeth completely avoid and they keep it very much Metal with a capital M, which honestly makes a nice pleasant change. ‘Hunde Wollt Ihr Ewig Leben’ (Dogs, do you want to live forever), which I note is also the name of a German war film, is certainly gung-ho and has a death grunt at start, loud backing yells in one part and one hell of a bristling and commanding mindset about it. Actually mentioning the war again, there is perhaps a theme here as the next number is ‘Das Boot’ another classic film title. Keeping things inventive there is a short snatch of violin on this one and a neat bit of a German marching song at the end.
Macbeth manage to do a good job at keeping my attention over these ten tracks, it’s ‘Maikaefer Flieg’ that stands out the most due to what sounds like a little girls voice leading sections and making the song go from heavy into what sounds like an innocent nursery rhyme. Out of curiosity I literally just threw the song title into Google and discover it is indeed an old German nursery rhyme and one that alludes to the 30 Year War. Despite total lack of understanding (seemed to have picked up some of it as I went along) this was a very enjoyable listen and I hope to hear about this band again, musically of course, no more suicides please!
http://www.myspace.com/abendmahl
http://www.macbeth-music.de
