Just over a year after their current album Salomé came out, Xandria is set to release a best-of compilation in a few weeks on June 6th. It consists of 2 discs inside a digipack.

What’s on the 2 discs?
The first disc is a normal music CD and holds 20 songs in total. Xandria fans will recognize most of the names from their discography of 4 albums, but there are also 2 non-album tracks and a third song that is all new. The second disc is a DVD that holds a 45-minute interview with the band (in German, but with English subtitles), footage from their performance at the 2007 Summer Breeze Festival, and all the band’s music videos.

Listen to Xandria
There are a few places online you can listen to some samples from Now And Forever, the most convenient being Xandria’s MySpace page. For a deeper look into their music, you can also visit Infrarot.de which has samples from their current studio album.

Buy Now And Forever
You can find the best price for Now And Forever in Europe at EMP.de. For fans in America, Isotank has imported it.

Xandria - Now And Forever tracklisting
01. Now & Forever
02. Ravenheart
03. Kill The Sun
04. In Love with the Darkness
05. Eversleeping
06. Only for the Stars in your Eyes
07. The End of Every Story
08. The Lioness
09. India
10. Save My Life
11. Ginger
12. Firestorm
13. Some Like it Cold
14. Black Flame
15. Like a Rose on the Grave of Love
16. Sisters of the Light
17. Mermaids (Child Of The Blue)
18. Drown in me
19. One Word
20. Lullaby

By the way, this is the 400th article on Germaniac.com!

Anyone who has been part of the online German music community for many years may remember GermanMetal.com which started in 2002. The original goal was to create complete fansites for German metal bands, but only the Oomph! and Herzer sections were ever finished before that first version of the site went offline.

Now, after a number of years in hibernation and lots of hard work more recently, site founder Joki has brought life back to GermanMetal.com in the form of a wiki. Just like any other wiki, anyone can add new pages and edit the information contained on the site, creating a knowledge base of German music that represents the areas of expertise of all its contributors. You can help add to the wiki, too. Just create an account to begin.

One thing to keep in mind: GermanMetal.com does not cover all styles of German music. As the name indicates, the site focuses specifically on some of the many various forms of metal that have become popular in Germany. Whether you call it industrial-metal, electro-metal, Neue Deutsche Härte, tanzmetall, or something completely different, it can be tricky figuring out if a band qualifies or not, especially when there are so many names for what seems to be basically the same thing. So if you want to write about a band, you should definitely read exactly what their definition of “German metal” is first. There’s also a priority artists list which can give you some suggestions for what bands to write about.

The GermanMetal.com wiki has lots of information about ASP, Samsas Traum and Unheilig already, and you can be sure that list will grow significantly over time. Check it out.

We have been following Schock’s return and the progress of their new album Halt Still for a while now. The past few years have been troublesome for the band and I knew more than a few people who thought they had simply split up in the 5 years since their last album Glamour was released, so we’re all very glad the band is back and moving towards the release of a third album.

Now, that new album has just become a little bit more real in the mind’s of Schock’s fans. They just announced the release date for Halt Still: June 6th. That’s barely over a month away, so it’s time to get excited! To help build your enthusiasm, go check out the 2 new songs from the album on the band’s MySpace page. Listen to their older ones too, if you’re not already a fan of Schock. They are fantastic!

The band’s site doesn’t have the tracklisting yet, but I found it on an online review of the album (which gave it 10 out of 10 points, by the way). It also tells us the total playtime is 47 minutes and 43 seconds, not bad for 13 tracks. I’m not crazy about the cover art, but I am definitely looking forward to this album and I hope you are too.

One last thing before the tracklisting, you can watch a “Making of Halt Still” video on our April 22nd Newsbites post.

Schock - Halt Still tracklisting
01. Kein Atemzug
02. Oh Yeah
03. Halt Still
04. Wie Ein Tier
05. Nichts Verlieren
06. Lolita
07. Hilf Mir
08. Am Ozean
09. Niemand
10. Frei
11. Es Tut Weh
12. Innerlich Tot
13. Am Ende

New demo from Down Below

Down Below has been hard at work on material for their next album and they’ve got a lot done so far. To give fans the first preview of their new album, the band has decided to upload a demo of their new song “Frei” on their fansite DownBelow-Fans.de on May 2nd. The only catch is you have to register for the site, but that’s not hard to do.

Free web album from Rozencrantz

I first wrote about Rozencrantz’s debut album Salvation in October, and I thought it was really great. Well it seems they created some music for an indie horror movie called Infekt and released it as a free web album some time after that, and I never noticed it until now. Go check it out on the Download page of their website. You can choose from either an MP3 of WAV file download, and you can get the artwork for it too.

More release dates added

I recently finished adding some more items to the 2008 release dates page, 17 in total. May is getting pretty filled up, and I will be working on June’s releases pretty soon.

On the 25th of April the German one-man black and gothic metal project Eden Weint Im Grab (or EwiG) will be releasing its second album titled Trauermarsch Nach Neotopia. The first album, Traumtrophäen Toter Trauertänzer, was released in 2004 for free on the Internet. It was quite a success, as the songs having been downloaded over 60,000 times according to EwiG’s website. Now Alexander Paul Blake, the man behind the project, is ready to release another dose of deadly black metal anthems, a full 14 of them.

Listen and order
You can get a taster of EwiG’s music on its Myspace site, where there are two songs from the upcoming album and also some of the older ones. You can still download the first album completely for free in its entirety on the band’s website as well. Trauermarsch Nach Neotopia is available at Winter Solitude Promotion in two different configurations; just the CD for 12 € or a special fan package for 25 €. The package includes the album itself, a T-shirt, an autographed picture and the first album in a special DVD case and bonus tracks.

Tracklisting for Trauermarsch Nach Neotopia:
01. Epiphanie Des Grauens
02. Krieg Im Wunderland
03. Blutquell
04. An Die Nacht…
05. Nach Eden Übers Meer
06. Undine (Sey Meyn Schutzgeyst)
07. Unter Dem Eis
08. Kindheitsrequiem
09. Im Schwarzen Todesblumenhain
10. Für Phantasus, Ein Traumsonett
11. Scheiterhaufen Eurer Phantasie
12. Weltgeheimnis
13. Durch Sturm Und Äonen
14. Heimwärts Ins Licht

Mikki from DeutschMusikLand.com recently completed an interview with Admirabilis, a gothic metal band from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the interview, the band’s classical vocalist Anh sheds light on lots of different topics about the band from their formation in 2003 to the release of their current album Above & Beyond. It’s definitely worth a read, so go ahead and check it out.

Admirabilis is also the new featured artist on DML, and for good reason. Their music is guitar-driven but does offer some electronic elements, and it’s all topped off with a pair of female singers, one rock inspired and the other sounding more classical. It’s a very nice combination, something we see a lot of because it works. You can hear 5 full-length songs on the band’s MySpace page, 3 from Above & Beyond and 2 from their 2004 debut Unbelievable. There are also samples of every song from their albums on the band’s website on their Music page (although their new album is only in the German side of their site). Have a listen and post a comment to let us know what you think.

KMFDM is re-releasing even more old music
Last month, we heard about KMFDM’s new set of releases called 24/7 where the are re-releasing one old single from the band’s back catalogue on a 7″ vinyl every month for the next 24 months. Now they are bombarding collectors with yet another group of re-releases called the Extra series. Extra is a trilogy of compilations that will contain all the rare non-album tracks KMFDM has recorded over the years. Volume 1 of the series will be a 2CD release with over 2 hours of music, although the exact tracklisting and release date have not been revealed yet.

Also, the “Don’t Blow Your Top” single from 24/7 has already sold out in the first few days of April. “More and Faster” is next and will appear in the KMFDM Store on May 1st.

ASP’s Horror Vacui book
Horror Vacui was the name of ASP’s best-of compilation that was released in February, and now there’s a Horror Vacui book to match. Inside, you will find 224 pages filled with the lyrics of ASP’s songs from 1999 to 2007 by singer and songwriter Alexander Spreng, along with short stories about their origins and inspirations. Available since March 14th, you can find the Horror Vacui book in ASP’s webshop or on Infrarot.de for the price of €19.80.

44 new items added to the release dates list
I was busy last night updating the release dates list. In total, I’ve added 44 new releases to the list, most of which are in April and May. We will definitely have a lot to talk about in the coming months!

Newsbites is a new format we’re trying for smaller topics that don’t really need a full article by itself. Let us know what you think about this by leaving a comment.

Documentary about Einstürzende Neubauten planned
The Berlin-based film maker Uli Schueppel is planning a documentary about Einstürzende Neubauten’s first concert which took place on December 21st, 1989 in what was then East Berlin. This should be really interesting to see when it’s completed, but for now Uli is in search of anyone who attended that concert and who can provide some additional information for his documentary. Anyone who can help should contact him at info@schueppel-films.de.

Diary Of Dreams has a clothing collection
I don’t know how old this news is, but it caught me by surprise as I was browsing Infrarot.de. Apparently Diary Of Dreams has launched a clothing line in association with the gothic clothing company Aderlass. They have several different styles of jackets, trench coats, pants and skirts available. You can see them all on Infrarot.de here, but I have to warn you, they are pretty expensive. The prices range from €89.90 to €239.90.

Lacrimosa begins work on new album
Lacrimosa, the Swiss gothic metal band headed up by Tilo Wolff, has begun working on their next album. This will be the band’s 10th studio album since they formed in 1990, and their first major release since their 2007 live album Lichtjahre. If you’re in Europe, be sure to catch one of their upcoming concerts or the Blackfield Festival in Gelsenkirchen where they will be headlining.

There’s still some time before any major releases in March, so I’m actually going to tell you about a few of the other interesting February releases that I missed…

Down Below - Sand In Meiner Hand MCD and Sinfony 23 re-release
Down Below is a relatively new gothic pop-rock band that started out in 2003. After gaining some popularity with their first 2 albums, they entered the 2008 Bundesvision Song Contest with their new single “Sand In Meiner Hand”. It was the band’s first German-language song, everything else they have done so far has been in English. When the contest was held on February 14th, Down Below only came in 3rd place (Subway To Sally won), but nevertheless the new single was released the next day on the 15th. Their latest album, 2007’s Sinfony 23, was also re-released on the same day with “Sand In Meiner Hand” and a few extra remixes added as bonus tracks. You can find the new single either on DownBelow.de or the band’s MySpace page, along with several other songs from Sinfony 23.

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter - Tobsucht-Reitermania over Wacken & Party.San
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter released a live album on the 1st of February. As the full name suggests, Tobsucht sports footage from the band’s performances at the Wacken Open Air festival and the Party.San festival and is available in 3 versions. There is an audio version with 2 CDs containing 90 minutes of live music, there is a DVD version with 180 minutes of concert footage, and there is a combined version with both of the CDs and the DVD plus a special booklet and packaging. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter have 2 songs from this live album on their MySpace page. Check it out if you’re into some crazy thrash metal.

I recently did an interview with 2 of the members of Beloved Enemy. Peter, who is the band’s main contributor, was previously in Fiddler’s Green before venturing into darker and heavier styles of music. Eddy is the band’s live bassist and also writes for Laut.de. Beloved Enemy’s singer, Ski, and their drummer, Dog, were unavailable for comment.

The interview is fairly long, so I hid it under the cut. (more…)