CADAVAR

What is still missing until the apocalypse? Fire from heaven? Locusts? Oceans of blood? Otherwise, everything is there. Not just since yesterday, of course: As early as 2017, Kadavar are roaring through their very own Doomsday scenario with “Rough Times”. Eight years later, they realize that everything has only gotten much, much worse. Once again, Berlin's rock royalty reacts to this with music — and sounds much more raw, booming, compact and gloomy than last: “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” is like a second debut album, a new reference work that combines the obsessed riffiness of their early days with the spacey creativity of the new constellation of four.

Just a few months ago, Kadavar made a remarkable new start with the spectacular space rock trip “I Just Want To Be A Sound.” It was necessary: Lupus Lindemann, Tiger Bartelt, Jascha Kreft and Simon Bouteloup had run out of steam. They were tired from touring around the world. Tired of yourself, maybe even. But what to do with everything you've built up? How to continue a career that has made Kadavar the biggest German vintage rock export in the world, but is now suddenly trying? Just stop like that? Continue as before?

Nope.

Tear it all down.

Together with producer Max Rieger (Die Nerven), Kadavar set out to find their identity. With “I Just Want To Be A Sound”, they are writing an album together that will be a new foundation for their sound. A foundation on which you can completely rebuild. And finally break the knot: Just a few months after this reset, Kadavar are returning to the source of their original fuzz power. And sound as liberated, as unleashed as I haven't been in years.

K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” is an album just like before. Just through the last guy's glasses. “This album was basically based on its predecessor,” says Tiger Bartelt. “It's like a negative of it.” What tended to meander on the last record is now grooving again. Where it was more about spherical surfaces, the reef now reigns supreme again. “We are consciously going back to our base,” adds Lupus Lindemann. “We wanted fat riffs again, we were in the mood for booming hard rock. ”

Of course, this also includes the right sound. “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” was created again like almost all other records before it: With Tiger Bartelt in the producer's chair. “It was recorded directly on a tape machine again, and I also brought my old acrylic drum kit back into the studio,” he says. As a result, something happened with Kadavar. “All uncertainty, all doubts were like persecution. And what can I say: This analog sound simply suits us perfectly. We've learned over the last few years that it's not always about sounding different. It's about having fun. And this time we had fun with something familiar. It just felt great to make this record. It's like coming home. ”

But just coming home after a formative trip: Without “I Just Want To Be A Sound”, without the experimental Covid record “Isolation Tapes” or the collab album with the psych-doom gods Elder, without the realignment as a quartet with Jascha Kreft, and even without the songwriting jobs for the Fantastischen Vier. “Our projects really couldn't have been much further apart at that time,” laughs Lupus. “But they were necessary because they showed us what Kadavar could be. Can be. That is why “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” is also the opposite of a step backwards. It is a big step forward, fed from the raw origins of this band. “The circle is coming full circle,” Tiger nods. “Since our debut, we've gone further and further to define rock music for ourselves. With all these experiences, with all these timbres, we have now simply made a rock record again like before.” Without the journey of recent years, everyone is certain that this band would no longer exist.

New addition Jascha Kreft (Odd Couple) now also plays a major role in the Kadavar sound. Without him, music would be different today. The end of the classical power trio forced Kadavar to rigorously rethink their music. And set off to foreign horizons. “We were an oiled machine for years,” says Lindemann. “A riff, a beat, vocals over it, done,” is how the singer describes her previous modus operandi a bit exaggerated. “With Jascha, we finally had all the opportunities we had always dreamed of. But we had to find a way to use them first.” Jascha nach Kreften — hehe — helped with that. “The boys welcomed me with open arms and immediately encouraged me to get into songwriting,” he remembers. “I don't know that much from other bands. Yet Lupus and Tiger have a dynamic that has made this band great. And of course there is nothing to shake about that. ”

The depth of content is also new to the Kadavar cosmos. Where “I Just Want To Be A Sound” dealt with internal conflicts, “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” deliberately goes outward. It's a classic Doomsday platter. Fucked up, angry, harder. More snappy. A reappraisal of everything that is going wrong in the world right now. So almost everything. “That's why these albums belong together thematically,” says Lupus. “After that, there will be a third plate that stands for spring, the resurrection. But to do that, we first have to wade through destruction. ”

And it gets destructive: The stomping base drum at the beginning of the opener “Lies” and the subsequent drone riff make you think briefly of “Iron Man” and lead into an incomprehensible groover that makes it unmistakably clear that the band hasn't forgotten anything. On the contrary: When the refrain spirals to the highest heights, you understand the odyssey Berliners have gone through in recent years. They set out to rediscover themselves, fighting their way through trials, tribulations, shoals and whirlpools.

The nine new tracks show that it was all worth it in the end. The spectrum ranges from cheeky slacker rock from “Stick It” to the booming juggernaut from “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” to a thrash metal club (!) “Total Annihilation.” Kadavar has probably never sounded more diverse and at the same time archetypical. But that's just the way it is when every band member contributes songs and ideas on an equal footing. “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.” sounds familiar and new at the same time, paying tribute to yesterday without being stuck in it. And it is one thing above all: An album full of joy to play. “We wanted to get back to the lightness that we had 15 years ago,” says Lindemann. “Of course, we won't get back the naivety of the first two records, but we can still get closer. It's like our debut, only this time as a quartet.” Furious, big, concentrated. Kadavars are back to their old ways. And yet completely new. Welcome home.

Björn Springorum

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