Greifenkeil, who released their album Blood Mystery last May, have changed their name to GriffonVox. Along with the new name comes a boatload of new stuff:

Annual Christmas gift
It seems Greifenkeil/GriffonVox have made it their tradition to release a free Christmas song every year. Following last year’s NoChristmasSong, this year’s track is called White Christmas (Law of the Land), and it’s the very first release under the new band name. You can download the mp3 here, or if you fancy, a 45 MB .wav file here.

New style, new releases
Sometimes when a band changes their name, nothing else is different. This time, however, GriffonVox seems to be seeking to distance themselves from Greifenkeil’s “psycho-acoustic performance art”, as now GriffonVox’s sites tell us they’re an “electronic wave performance” act. Last time I checked, Greifenkeil’s music was a very interesting kind of ambient and psychedelic industrial, so it’ll be interesting to see just what this new direction means for the band. If the new Christmas song White Christmas is of any indication, the sound is a bit less crushing and industrial than before, and seems to have a touch of trance or something like that to it. Nevertheless, it’s really good.

To really drive home the fact that the band has changed, GriffonVox is releasing the album Blood Mystery again done entirely anew in the new style. According to their MySpace site, Blood Mystery - Electronic Wave Mix will be available for free for everyone who bought the original version of the album, or as Blood Mystery Kultbox which will have both the original Blood Mystery as well as the new version. Alongside the transformed original songs, the Electronic Wave Mix also boasts some older songs they performed during their shows, presumably played in the new style. Blood Mystery - Electronic Wave Mix will see the light of day at the Wave Gothik Treffen 2009 festival in early summer.

In WGT 2009 will also be released a brand new EP, She’s Lost Control. She’s Lost Control is a cover of Joy Division’s 1979 hit song, but the EP will have at least two other tracks as well. Whether these are remixes, other cover versions or completely new GriffonVox songs remains a secret. Also, not content with releasing this much stuff already, early spring 2009 something known only as Law of the Land will be available as a free download. I’m afraid there’s currently no information on this one. Keep your eyes peeled.

Just shy of one year after their last album Symbol, Greifenkeil is already back with a new album that was just released today, May 9th. It’s called Blood Mystery and features 12 new songs from this dark electro-industrial act.

The traditional album format of all songs being mostly the same length is pretty much ignored here. Several of tracks (called “intros” in the tracklisting, although they are probably more like interludes) are pretty short, between 1:30 and 2:30 in length. To make up for this, most of the songs in between are more than 8 minutes, while one (”Blood Motion”) is almost 11 minutes long. All summed up, the album comes out to be about an hour in length.

Check out Greifenkeil’s MySpace page for several samples from the new album. You can find it online at AlphaMusic.de for 13.99 EUR.

Greifenkeil - Blood Mystery tracklisting
01. Reveal (Intro)
02. Blood Mystery
03. The Flow (Intro)
04. Blood Motion
05. Impasse (Intro)
06. Vendetta
07. Unleash (Intro)
08. Blood War
09. Goddess Of Blood
10. Tears Of Blood
11. Mystery (Outro)
12. Blood Mystery (Video Edit)

Purwien is the new solo project of former Second Decay member Christian Purwien. While the band is new, fans of Joachim Witt should already know a little about Purwien because Witt was featured as a guest vocalist on Purwien’s single “Alle Fehler”. This single and 14 other songs are now available on Purwien’s debut album named Eins. And after the main album has played, there are 5 more bonus remixes at the end of the CD.

The style of the music overall is electronic pop, kind of like modern new wave. We wish Purwien’s Myspace page had some full songs, but they only have 4 short samples which really don’t give that great of a feeling of what the music is really like. Fortunately, there is some compensation offered by the “Alle Fehler” music video available on Purwien’s website. Check it out here (right click to save).

Eins tracklist
01. Dummheit
02. Alle Fehler (Edit)
03. Bei Dir
04. Raum12
05. Früher
06. So Kalt
07. Vielleicht Ist Es So
08. Konsum
09. Leb’ Wohl
10. Ich Kann Sehen
11. Meine Meinung
12. Um Mich
13. Alle Fehler (mit Witt)
14. Bei Dir (Reprise)
15. E.I.N.S.
16. Bei Dir (Blutengel Remix)
17. Bei Dir (Joke J. Remix)
18. Bei Dir (Welle Erdball Remix)
19. Bei Dir (Polytune Remix)
20. Alle Fehler (Oktonaut Remix)

One interesting side note: The band Greifenkeil that we reported on earlier this week did a remix of “Alle Fehler” which is available on the “Alle Fehler” single.

Greifenkeil is an “acoustic performance project” (really an electro-industrial act) that just recently released an amazing album called Symbol on May 18th. It was inspired by recent archaeological discoveries in Germany and Austria which prove the existence of a European civilization 7000 years ago. The album was issued in 2 formats on the original date: a regular CD version and a CD plus remixes version. A few weeks later on June 1st, a limited collector’s edition was released with a bonus disc featuring many more remixes by several other German bands.

The music on the album is fantastic. It is dark and atmospheric. The electronics really pulsate with a deep energy. I really wish I had more to offer you for this one, but Greifenkeil’s Myspace page only has a few samples, no full length songs. But you can preview 45 seconds of every song over on Infrarot.de.

Symbol tracklisting
01. Symbol
02. Untergang
03. Survivor
04. Democracy
05. Selling Your Souls
06. Curse
07. Departed
08. Platz der Alten Steine
09. Ahnentempel
10. WinterSolstice
11. Symbol (Reprise)

Bonus remix disc (limited collector’s edition only)
01. Symbol (Greifenkeil Club Version)
02. Symbol (FIL / Qntal Remix)
03. Symbol (Implant Remix)
04. Symbol (La Magra Remix)
05. Symbol (Puissance Remix)
06. Untergang (Greifenkeil Club Version)
07. Survivor (Greifenkeil Club Version)
08. Democracy (Greifenkeil Club Version)
09. Democracy (DemoCrazy RMX by Monolith)
10. Democracy (violent nation RMX by acylum)
11. Democracy (Synaptic Defect Remix)
12. Democracy (Puissance Remix)