Treibhaus just announced that they have a new bass player. Klaus Alberti will be replacing their old bassist Ulli Wellhausen, but there doesn’t seem to be any hard feelings. The band wished Ulli all the best luck in his future endeavors. In their newsletter, the band also said they are already working on new songs for what will become their third album. The members of Treibhaus must have some kind of unstoppable musical energy inside them because they are pumping out music incredibly fast. Their debut Unsterblich came out in 2005 and then their second album Feindbild was just released last year. That’s pretty impressive, especially considering the music is pretty good.

If you’re in Germany, be sure to catch Treibhaus live on stage on November 10th in Ingolstadt. They will be opening for Megaherz who will be playing for the first time with their new lineup.

Back in April, Megaherz let us know that they were still around and hinted at what was to come… a new frontman and a new album. Now, four months later, several details have been announced via the band’s German forum. The new singer will be none other than Lex from Seelenbrand, as many have guessed. (Megaherz fans will remember that Lex sang for Megaherz at their concert in Moscow.) They have also announced their new drummer, Jürgen “Bam Bam” Wiehler.

This new band lineup has already been working together for several months, recording songs for the upcoming album. Megaherz has been busy working out a deal with a record label to release the album, as well. And finally, Megaherz.de has been fabulously redesigned in flash. From the looks of things, we just might have a new Megaherz album in hand by the end of the year.

This news comes just days after we found out about the first new Megaherz concert of the year, as well as the news that their previous singer Mathias Eisholz has returned to the music world with the band Die!

Everyone was shocked when the extremely talented singer Mathias Elsholz suddenly left the band Megaherz in September of 2005. Naturally, we understood his concerns because he had just become a new father and wanted to focus more on his family, but there may have been more to it than that. He left Megaherz with a full list of confirmed tourdates that they had to cancel, and the rest of the band weren’t very happy about the whole situation. It seemed like everybody thought he would stay out of the music business for a long time, according to his statements and the way he was acting at the time.

It turns out that this was not true. Matze has recently joined up with the band Die! to become their new singer, following the departure of their previous vocalist Oliver Jung. This is very surprising news, especially considering Matze must have been with the band for some time already. Die! has already recorded a few demo tracks with him as the singer, and they are apparently working towards putting out a new album in the future. I’m certainly looking forward to hearing the new music, and I know Megaherz fans will be, too.

Although it hasn’t been officially announced on the Megaherz website, it appears they have a concert date coming up on November 10th according to their booking agent. This show will take place at the SPL concert hall in Ingolstadt, Germany.

The SPL site also says that Megaherz has a new (but not yet announced) frontman, as we have already known for a while. But what’s interesting is that the site says something about this concert being “exclusive” to SPL. What this means exactly is not yet certain, but I’m sure the band has something special in mind.

Alexx Wesselsky is one of the biggest names in German electro-metal music, and his physical presence doesn’t let you forget it. This Eisbrecher (and formerly Megaherz) frontman is a lifelong resident of Munich and knows all about his hometown. So when Radio Goethe correspondent Nina Pauler got the opportunity to take a tour of this beautiful city with Alexx as her guide, she couldn’t resist.

The two started out by visiting the Tollwood Festival in the Munich Olympiapark. (This structure was actually designed by the German architect Günter Behnisch, not a Danish designer like Alexx said.) Later that night, they headed to The Garage where Megaherz played many of their first concerts, and eventually found themselves in the Nerodom where Alexx is a DJ once a month. The next day, he and Nina visited the world famous Frauenkirche which is the biggest church in Munich. Then, they visited a number of other landmarks in the city including the opera house (where they heard the music of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, not Tchaikovsky as Nina guessed) and some other museums and monuments. They ended their tour in one of Munich’s famous beer gardens.

If you listen to the full show, you will not only get a great tour of Munich with a fantastic musician, but you’ll also hear some interesting history lessons. To listen to the full 30-minute segment, head on over to the Radio Goethe Magazine website or download it directly here. Please let Arndt know what you think of this new program with musicians taking us on a tour of their hometown. We would appreciate it if you leave a message in the Radio Goethe guestbook or just write a short review of the show on iTunes.

The new Freiflug EP from Megaherz was originally released on June 29th to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the band’s first album Wer Bist Du, but so far it has been awfully hard to get here in the US. But earlier today, Betsy from the Megaherz forum announced that it will soon be available in the Megaherz.com Shop. This is good news for Megaherz fans in the States because we won’t have to pay the outrageous overseas postage fees to get our fix.

She also points us to the tracklisting which has finally been posted on Amazon.de:

01. Intro
02. Video Freiflug
03. Video / Radio Cut
04. Album Version
05. Kopfschuss
06. Miststück
07. Jordan
08. Himmelfahrt

The record label Megaherz used to be on, ZYX, just released a new EP featuring the band’s popular song “Freiflug” in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the their first album, Wer Bist Du. Even though the EP was released a few days ago on June 29th, not much is known other than that the DVD feature will apparently be in NTSC format (which is primarily used in North America). The tracklisting is not yet known either, but there is evidence to suggest that the Freiflug EP will be a mix of a best-of (like their compilation Querschnitt) and the original “Freiflug” single which featured the music video. (By the way, you can watch the “Freiflug” video right here at any time)

Also, if you listened to the new Radio Goethe podcast like we recommended yesterday, Arndt tells us that Megaherz is heading back into the studio to work on some new music. But that’s a different subject which we’ll get to another time…

Back in 1998, the Munich-based band Megaherz released their second album Kopfschuss. A year later, the “Freiflug” single was released and featured the band’s only music video to date. It’s a cool video, showing the band members suspended in the air by heavy ropes. The song itself is a bit mellow compared to their usual music, but this song is still a classic for all fans of German rock.

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=687hMHuCqYA

GERMANIACdotcom will be posting at least one music video every week by a German band. If you enjoy any of the videos, please check out that band’s website to learn more about them. You can also listen to their music on their website or on Myspace.com (if they have an account there), and you can also find more videos by the band on YouTube.com.

Megaherz links
Official English site: Megaherz.com
Official German site: Megaherz.de
Forums: MHz.Herzeleid.com