Joachim Witt’s acclaimed Werkreihe Bayreuth phase of musical career and set of albums didn’t, in fact, come to a close with the 2007 best-of Auf Ewig. Instead, there was room for one final Bayreuth-release: Dorian Hunter Theme, the main theme for the successful German horror audio drama Dorian Hunter, which is based on the Dämonenkiller series of books by Ernst Vlcek. Currently five parts of Dorian Hunter have been released, with another five coming and the series ending sometime in 2010. Witt not only composed the main theme song, but he’s also responsible for all of the soundscapes present in the play. The theme song is pretty awesome - a haunting, dark and very electronic song that has more in common with Bayreuth I and Eisenherz than Witt’s latest works.

The Dorian Hunter Theme was released last month as a digital download and also as a CD single, and it contains the original version of the track, three remixes and as a bonus five short clips from the radio play. You can listen to samples and buy the single on at least Amazon.de, where you can also order the Dorian Hunter audio play CDs themselves. Alternatively, you can order everything from the publisher Zaubermond instead.

According to Witt himself, Dorian Hunter now finally wraps up the Bayreuth-era and next productions are looming in the horizon. I personally can’t wait to see what he has in store for the future. In the next few days we’ll at least be talking about Leichtmatrose, a new band Witt was recently completely enthralled by and which he gave a big hand by mentoring and providing artistic guidance, so look forward to seeing a post about that project soon!

Joachim Witt - Dorian Hunter Theme
1. Dorian Hunter Theme (Single version)
2. Dorian Hunter Theme (Moorland remix)
3. Dorian Hunter Theme (Forma tadre remix by Moorland Music)
4. Dorian Hunter Theme (Orchestral remix by Moorland Music)
5. “Mein lieber … Rest!” (snippet from part 1)
6. “Lilians Irrsinn” (snippet from part 1)
7. “Finde Dorian” (snippet from part 1)
8. “Sagen Sie mir die Wahrheit!” (snippet from the epilogue of part 2)
9. “Jeff Parker sagt Tschüss” (snippet from part 5)

If gothic metal is your style, you’ll want to give Coronatus a listen. Their new album Porta Obscura was released last week on November 28th, just 14 months after their impressive debut Lux Noctis. The band’s overall symphonic metal style have continued on to Porta Obscura, which is available in two versions. The standard version has 11 songs, and the limited edition contains 2 bonus tracks including a song from the band’s early days in 2002.

While female-fronted metal bands seem to be all the rage lately, Coronatus has put their own spin on this popular trend by having two female singers instead of just one. Carmen Schäfer and Ada Flechtner each provide a different sound as well, one is a rock style vocalist and the other is more classical and operatic. Some critics have said that this still doesn’t make the band unique because it’s been done before, which is true, but it is definitely less common than the typical one-male, one-female, or one-of-each singers that most bands utilize. In any case, it’s always best to determine for yourself whether a band sounds good or not, so let’s move on to the samples…

For online listening, Coronatus has provided 3 one-minute MP3 samples from Porta Obscura that you can get on their website’s Download page, right below a full-length track from last year’s debut. If you like those and want to get the album, you’ll be happy to know that it’s being widely distributed by Massacre Records. Amazon.com has both versions of Porta Obscura (standard version and limited edition), and although they are listed as imports, buying them there will still be a lot cheaper than importing them yourself from some other German site. Coronatus’s debut Lux Noctis is also available from Amazon.com as either a CD or as an MP3 download. If you’re in Europe, you can find all Coronatus albums on AlphaMusic.de.

Coronatus - Porta Obscura track listing:
01. Prologue
02. Exitus
03. Fallen
04. In Silence
05. Beauty In Black
06. Cast My Spell
07. In Your Hands
08. Mein Herz
09. Am Kreuz
10. Der Vierte Reiter
11. Strahlendster Erster
12. Flos Obscura (Bonus Track)
13. Volles Leben (2002) (Bonus Track)

Many of you know Markus Winter as the creative force behind the band Hertzton, but that’s not the only project he is involved with. Recently, Winter announced a new single called “Life Ain’t Worth Living” that will be released under his own name on September 12th as a download only. You should be able to find it on all the major music download sites like iTunes and MusicLoad.de on that date.

The single has 2 versions of the blues-influenced ballad “Life Ain’t Worth Living” (the normal version and an acoustic version), and 2 instrumentals, “The Chase” and “Schattentänzer”. The songs are said to be quite different from the typical style of Hertzton, perhaps a sign of change for his upcoming album Life in Uncertain Times as well. We’ll have more news on that as the January 23, 2009, album release date comes closer.

Markus Winter - “Life Ain’t Worth Living” single tracklisting
01. Life Ain’t Worth Living (single version)
02. The Chase
03. Schattentänzer (jahrhundertstein instrumental)
04. Life Ain’t Worth Living (acoustic version)

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.