Die Verlierer

 

 

Die Verlierer (the Losers) is a new band from Berlin, Germany, made of three guys from Chuckamuck and two guys from Maske (I wrote a little something about their debut tape two years ago because I liked it and I didn't write anything about their second tape because I didn't like it). Some of them are also involved in some smaller projects like Balcony's Paradise and Kinder (Children).

 

 

So their debut album was recently released on tape by Mangel Records (a vinyl version would be nice though) and, despite its duration (way over 30 minutes which is really long to me), I've found myself coming back to it several times, struggling to build a proper opinion but nevertheless finding a certain kind of enjoyment in the very German sound of the young Berliners... So it's well worth a short write-up, right?!

 

 

Because for a guy like me Die Verlierer got something slightly elusive, something which doesn't fit well in any of small and well-defined genre boxes of loud guitar music. Their music sounds a bit low-fi, a bit like a long-forgotten tape from an obscure 80s Berlin band, their music sounds punk sometimes, because of the "relative rawness" and the energy not because of a fixation on sounding like this or that band, but their music also got something deeply sad and disillusioned, something very German, very Berlin I would even say.

So yes to be honest I don't really where I am with this tape, probably somewhere between the early 80s from the SO36 and Die Neue Deustche Welle, the new Hipster Berlin and a more accessible kind of German rock...

 

Between great bass lines (Die Zeit, Mann in Mond), a real kind of punk energy (Nichts Funktionniert, Dead Girl), unbearable repetitive choruses (Plastic Life would probably have a good chance to supplant Slayer as an official torture anthem in the CIA secret jails), a great sense of simple but effective and catchy melodies, straight forward sing-along choruses tailor-made to lead the crowd in a joyful alcoholic bellowing (X-Ray Vision) and endless psychedelic outros (Into A), Die Verlierer deliver a dense and diverse album that doesn't ring like an "all killer no filler" type of record to me but is more a "grower", a cool anomaly I like to come back to from time to time (on Sundays especially) when I feel like relaxing without a raging D-beat band tearing my eardrums.

But most of all Die Verlierer sound like nostalgia, nostalgia for the crazy Berlin from the 80s and early 90s, leader of the European art scene and all kind of deviant innovative kind of expressions, a Berlin that appears more and more faraway based on what I hear...... Well I haven't been there for very long to be honest and I'm sure it's still cool to hang out there, but it's not the same.
 

Let's see if Die Verlierer and others manage to avoid falling into the "hype trap" and become the "leaders" of a new momentum of the Berlin alternative scene.

 

 

Video by Ciaran

 

 

 

 

N,J'Oi! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Die Verlierer on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

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