Reviews
Feindflug: I./St.G. 3 (Phase 2)
21/02/11 || Habakuk
No, this time it’s not an NSBM band. In fact, it is not even an NS-something band. Feindflug (pronounced “find-floog” you English-speaking morons) are an East-German two-man industrial project obviously unafraid of using controversial imagery to hold a very subtly ironic but deeply cynical mirror up to fascist ideologies. And they make electronic music, basically. What are they doing on this metal site then?
Well, well, electronic music has never sounded more metal than this. Anyone remember the old Command & Conquer soundtracks (“Hell March” by Frank Klepacki and the likes)? This is it. Militaristic, mechanical beats meet simplistic metal guitars, and a few (mostly German) samples are strewn in between. The results are aggressive, pumping songs that put you right in the middle of a mid-90s bunker party and keep enough guitar sounds in there to make even the long-haired dudes stay in the room.
In fact, this is some of the darkest but still aggressive music I know. “Im Auftrag der Ehre” sounds like a proper horror movie intro (of the good kind), only to lead into the morphing electronica sounds of “NSD” that transform into the most pumping semi-riff ever recorded. If you don’t move to this, you are dead. Like, officially. Feindflug’s music is basically pure rhythm over brooding bass, and even the guitar sounds are used like percussion instruments.
The whole package is an incredibly tight and intense slab of structured violence that doesn’t really need speed to excel — this is not Dutch Power Hardstyle or whatever, it’s really clear and focused. The following tracks then give the music an eerie feel with their prison- and ideology-related samples, which admittedly won’t do much for you if you don’t speak German (apart from a “duh, this is like Rammstein” feel), but probably still sound cool. It all culminates with “Kahle Bedrohung”, though, a monster of a song, and definitely the best Feindflug tune I know. Guitar samples are layered over an absolutely massive, shifting beat literally like machinegun fire, and I’m not using this wording just for the sake of cool military language. That would be a bit blatant anyway, given the overall nature of the band. No, but it simply does sound like it, and it’s fan-fucken-tastic to boot. To wrap things up, “Outro (‘96)” ends the disc once more in true C&C fashion and leaves you wondering just how awesome a 25 minutes EP can be.
If you, by any chance, listen to metal but have stayed away from electronic music on principle, you have a) failed, and you have b) not heard Feindflug yet. Start here, now.
- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Black Rain
- Website: www.feindflug.info
- Band
- Felix: songwriting, arrangements, production, mix
- Banane: samples, mix
- Tracklist
- 01. Im Auftrag der Ehre
- 02. NSD (Vollversion ’97)
- 03. Leitbild
- 04. Lagerhaft
- 05. Kahle Bedrohung
- 06. Outro (‘96)
