We missed talking about a few good releases earlier in the year, one of which was the album Die Wahrheit Übers Lügen by the Farin Urlaub Racing Team. Of course, you know Farin Urlaub as the singer of the punk rock band Die Ärzte, which released their incredibly successful album Jazz Ist Anders about a year ago. Taking into consideration all the related activities the band did, like touring, it’s a bit of a miracle that he got another solo album out so quickly. But he did, and it’s a quality album, too.

Die Wahrheit Übers Lügen, which was released back on Halloween, translates to “the truth about lies”, a name that is both funny and serious at the same time. You can hear hints of this duality in the music itself, as well. Speaking of the music, Farin Urlaub’s website has samples so you can listen to bits of all 15 songs from the album. You can also watch all kinds of Farin Urlaub-related videos on FUtube.de, a really great website idea.

Farin Urlaub Racing Team will also be releasing a new single for the song “Niemals” on January 9th. It will be the second single for the album, following “Nichimgriff” which was released 2 weeks before Die Wahrheit Übers Lügen on October 17th.

You can find the album Die Wahrheit Übers Lügen and the 2 singles on most German online shops like Amazon.de, Abella.de, and AlphaMusic.de which seems to be priced the lowest.

Farin Urlaub Racing Team - Die Wahrheit Übers Lügen tracklist
Disc 1:
01. Nichimgriff
02. Unscharf
03. Gobi Todic
04. Seltsam
05. Krieg
06. Pakistan
07. Niemals
08. Die Leiche
09. Monster
10. Atem
11. Karten

Disc 2:
01. I.F.D.G.
02. Zu Heiß
03. Insel
04. Trotzdem

The electro-rock band Northern Lite released their fifth album Super Black back in March and now they are on tour across Europe. But if you aren’t in the region, you can still watch a Northern Lite concert without leaving home. Their performance tomorrow, December 11th, at Amsterdam’s Paradiso venue will be streamed live online for everyone to see, thanks to FabChannel.com. The live stream starts at 10:30 PM Central European Time, which is 9:30 PM in the UK, 4:30 PM for the East Coast of the U.S. and 1:30 PM for the West Coast. Here’s the link to the stream.

If you aren’t able to watch Northern Lite’s concert at the time it’s taking place, you can always watch it later at any time once it is added to FabChannel’s archives. And if you have some time to kill, you can always browse the archives which contains over 1000 concerts, many of them from German bands like Polarkreis 18, Jeans Team, Digitalism, and others.

To most non-German Germaniacs, Extrabreit probably sounds only marginally familiar because Oomph! has covered them twice (Der Präsident ist tot and Polizisten), but the band is actually also one of the most successful bands founded during the heyday of the Neue Deutsche Welle genre. NDW, a hybrid of punk and New Wave of sorts, swept Germany in the late 70s and early 80s, but was so popular that it practically killed itself by oversaturating the market. Most bands quit and some artists managed to make a comeback later, the definitely most notable comeback being Joachim Witt’s, who was able to put himself in the forefront of German music again with his massively revamped sound. Being also totally bad-ass most likely didn’t make the matters worse for Witt, either. Some of the NDW bands, however, have been able to enjoy continuous popularity through the years, and Extrabreit is one of those bands.

Extrabreit hasn’t been exactly eager to call itself an NDW band, and they do have more of a punk and rock sound to them than most bands of the genre. Maybe that’s exactly what has enabled them to stay active to this very day, releasing their thirteenth full-length album Neues von Hiob this May and a double-CD live album commemorating their 30 years of illustrious career just last October. The effectively named live record 30 Jahre is surely a great way to introduce yourself to Extrabreit’s music, as it contains a wide variety of old hits and also a lot of newer stuff. Personally I think it’s always great to see a veteran band like Extrabreit still be so enthusiastic about their music despite decades of playing. However, I do have to wonder if it’s really a must for all such anniversary compilations or the like to have really atrocious covers…

You can get an idea of Extrabreit’s music from their MySpace, or by downloading the free song Glück & Geld live 2008 taken from the new live album. You can buy both products at Merch United for quite a reasonable price, 10€ for 30 Jahre and 14,90€ for Neues von Hiob. It has to be said, though, that US residents really might want to find some other place to shop, as Merch United takes a massive 30€ for postage. Amazon.de has at least Neues von Hiob for 15,95€.

Click below for tracklisting.

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I can’t believe we haven’t covered this one before. Hailing from Düsseldorf, Die Toten Hosen is, and has been for like two decades, one of the most popular German bands in existence, especially in its country of origin but also moderately so elsewhere. A result of the punk rock movement in Germany, the band was formed in 1982 and has since achieved mammoth-like success with their punk-influenced rock. Their hit song Hier kommt Alex (Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau, 1988) was even included in both of the insanely popular video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero III. During the years they have toyed with a wide range of styles, including reggae, jazz and folk, and, like a good punk band should, the band’s themes are often political and/or humorous. Anyways, last month they released a new single Strom in anticipation of their umpteenth (actually 14th) studio album In aller Stille, which came out just last Friday. The band is also going to put out a live DVD, titled Hals + Beinbruch - Live bei Rock am Ring 2008, later this month.

In aller Stille

The new album is out in three different editions: a regular digipak, a limited CD + DVD digibook and an individually signed, numbered and limited to 2000 copies deluxe set where you’ll get the album both as a CD and on two vinyls. The album is available at a bunch of online stores, for example Alphamusic.de, which has the normal version for 15,99 € and the limited for 18,99 € (it seems they’ve already sold all of their vinyls), or EMP.de, where you can get the regular edition for 17,99 €, the CD + DVD for 22,99 € and the vinyl set for 25,99 €. You can also get the single Strom at both stores, EMP.de for 6,99 € or Alphamusic.de for 5,49 €.

Hals + Beinbruch - Live bei Rock am Ring 2008

The upcoming DVD will be released on 28th this month, and it’ll feature a full live set of 30 songs, including Innen alles neu from the new album, played at the Rock am Ring festival last summer. There’s also a document detailing the preparations for the live show as bonus material. All this equals a total of 144 minutes of Die Toten Hosen, the show itself lasting 122 minutes and the document 22 minutes. Hals + Beinbruch - Live bei Rock am Ring 2008 will be available as a normal DVD and also a high-definition Bluray disc, both of which are preorderable at least at EMP.de (20,99 € for the normal DVD, 25,99 € for the Bluray.

See and hear

You can catch the latest (actually quite rocking) video for the single Strom here, or listen to some samples of all the new songs on In aller Stille here. There’s also a preview of the DVD, viewable here.

Hit the jump for all tracklisting!

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Eisschock’s new EP is web-only (also awesome)

Eisschock, a one-woman EBM outfit released its debut titled Therapie two years ago. It was a solid album with some rough edges like the rather undeveloped sound, but it was really promising anyway and left me wanting more. Well, now there’s a chance to get some more: last month a new EP, Play the Game, was released - although only on the web. And boy, the five new tracks do sound pretty good. Almost everything sounds better than the last time: the sounds have more punch to them, there’s more meat to the compositions and the singer sings better than ever before. Better check it out if you can spare a measly couple of bucks for some quality EBM/electro (I’m sure you can).

You can listen to lengthy samples of all five tracks on Eisschock’s MySpace site, or catch a music video for the pretty fantastic title track of the EP here. Eisschock also released a free instrumental track titled Secret World in July, you can download it here. You can buy the EP at several web shops, for example Amazon.com for $0,89 a track, Junodownload.com for something like 1£ for each song or MP3.de for 1,29 € a piece.

Tracklisting for Play the Game by Eisschock
1. Hass mich
2. Play the Game
3. Pictures of the Past
4. Platitudes
5. Far Far Away

Unheilig to re-release Puppenspiel and An deiner Seite

Yeah, we know that Unheilig’s newest album Puppenspiel, released early this year, was a massive success and probably also one of the very best releases this year, but is it really necessary to rub it in our faces? Now that the album has been more or less completely sold out, they’re going to release it again on November 28th, but this time in a total of three different versions. In addition to another pressing of the very basic CD with all the tracks, booklets and what have you, there’s going to be a stripped-down, so-called PUR version where you’ll get the album in a minimalistic cardboard sleeve. Finally you’ll be able to get a new “Limited Deluxe Edition” with the 14 main tracks and a bonus DVD. So, sorry, it seems that if you missed the two extra songs (Glaub an mich, Spielzeugmann) on the original digipak limited edition, you still won’t get your hands on them…

Also, Unheilig’s single An deiner Seite was pretty much sold out, and so even more rubbing-in-face is available. An deiner Seite will be re-released November 14th in two configurations: a normal single with the original radio mix and a whole new radio mix produced by the producer Oliver Pinelli and re-recorded specifically for the single, and a premium single with a new orchestral mix of the song and a video feature thingy. Yeah, one orchestral version was already included on the Spiegelbild EP, but this is a new one. At least EMP.de already has both editions of the single.

Tracklisting for An deiner Seite by Unheilig
1. An deiner Seite (Pinelli Radio Mix)
2. An deiner Seite (Original Radio Mix)

Tracklisting for An deiner Seite premium edition by Unheilig
1. An Deiner Seite (Pinelli Orchester Mix)
2. Videospezial (Impressionen, Making Of, Live, Video)

Mina Harker goes Tiefer on debut album

Do you remember the awesome remix version of Rammstein’s Ohne Dich by Laibach and Mina Harker? Well, now Mina Harker has finally, just about a week ago on October 31st, released her very first album titled Tiefer. Tiefer seems to be a very promising blend of gothic, industrial, rock and poppy things with Harker’s great voice on top of it all. On top of ten other rock-pop-goth songs, there’s also a duet with Dero from Oomph!, who Harker will be supporting on their German tour for the successful album Monster.

You can check several samples from the album, including the aforementioned duet with Dero, on Mina Harker’s MySpace site. Tiefer is obtainable from most stores, like EMP.de for 15,99 €, Infrarot.de for 14,99 €, Out of Line Shop for 12,99 € or Isotank for $19,99.

You’ll find the track listing for the album after the break.

Blutengel presses onwards with new single Dancing in the Light

Just a couple of months have passed since Blutengel released their huge live DVD set Moments of our LIVEs. Now the band is back at it again: a new single, titled Dancing in the Light, will be dancing in the light of day in nine days on 14th November! The single will be a teaser for the next album, which is scheduled to be released sometime early next year, and there’s going to be two different variations of the single. Both Dancing in the Light (”Forsaken”) and Dancing in the Light (”Solitary”) will feature the title track, a music video, an exclusive remix and two extra songs. The remixes and the bonus tracks are, of course, all different on both versions.

You can catch a trailer for the single here. The single seems to be orderable from just about everywhere, for example EMP.de has both versions (Solitary, Forsaken) for 6,99 €, Isotank has them (Solitary, Forsaken) for $9,99 each and Out of Line Shop has a bundle with both versions for 11,98 €.

And now for the piece of news countless people have been waiting for…

Rammstein begins recording of the new album

Yeah, that’s right, the NDH band that made the genre popular around the world has finally started recording their next album. The newly updated official website has been stripped of the Völkerball-look that’s been annoying eager fans for a couple of years by not displaying any updates at all with a simple black-and-gray style. Also, just about everything on the site has also been cleaned up and replaced with a newspost stating that recording will commence on November 9th in a studio in San Fransisco, while the drum tracks are being worked on in Los Angeles. Not much yet, but darned if I’m not excited. Rammstein’s definitely not my favourite German band anymore, but they bloody well do deserve the praise and the success they’ve had for their efforts in making German music (and German altogether) more popular all around the globe.

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Monkeeman is an up and coming pop-rock (or powerpop, as they prefer to call it) band from Berlin. Their first two albums were received enthusiastically, even getting mentioned in the international media, and now they are back with their third album Life In The Backseat which was just released on August 15th. Band leader Ralf Luebke says the album was inspired by his early years growing up and deals with suburban life, frustration, greed and anger, giving the album a slight punk attitude as well.

You can listen to 2 songs from Life In The Backseat on Monkeeman’s MySpace page, “Lonely Guy” and “In It For The Money”, the latter of which I’d say is the best one. AlphaMusic.de also has brief samples from every song. If you like it, you can also buy it there for a very reasonable 10.99 Euros.

Monkeeman - Life In The Backseat tracklisting
01. In it for the money
02. Lonely guy
03. Socialism
04. Backstreet
05. Staring at a TV screen
06. Under the moon
07. I know a girl
08. Things wont get any better
09. Town of the lost
10. Holes in the snow
11. City lights

Böhse Onkelz continues to have new releases, even long after the band split up three years ago in 2005. The latest is a series of re-releases done on vinyl which is meant to be aimed more towards collectors and the band’s hardcore fans. Among the new vinyls, you’ll find the Onkelz albums Heilige Lieder, Live in Vienna, the Schwarzes Album, the Weißes Album, Wir Ham’ Noch Lange Nicht Genug, their best-of Gehasst, Verdammt, Vergöttert, and their final album Adios.

The release date for all of these is July 25th. They’re a bit more expensive than a typical album release on CD, but if you really want these, you should be able to find them on pretty much any decent online retailer like EMP or AlphaMusic.

The combination of Greg going MIA and me slacking off because of the holidays is not a good thing for Germaniac. Here’s the catch-up news post for some of the most important stuff that’s been happening in these couple of weeks. I hope we’ll be able to resume normal operations as soon as possible! All the tracklistings and ordering information relevant to this post can be found behind the link at the end, because with them this already horribly lengthy post would be, simply put, INSANE.

Oomph!’s album #10 to be Monster

Oomph!, one of the pioneering bands of the industrial metal and NDH genres, will be releasing their tenth album in August according to Oomph!’s official site. The record, of which we got a little taster with the single Wach auf! which was released earlier this year, will be titled Monster. Not much else is known of the upcoming record, except for some tidbits revealed in a German interview. Amongst others, we’re going to get an “electro metal tango” piece and a blues song as well.

No doubt in celebration of their tenth album and as a sign of gratitude to their fans, Dero, Crap and Flux are also offering fans a unique chance to permanently cement themselves in the Oomph! legacy by running a contest for the cover design of the new album. Anyone can send in their visions of what the cover should be until June 27th, and the boys themselves will then choose the final design that will adorn the album. A number of the submissions can already be checked out here, and they range from quite horrible to insanely cool. I for one am eager to find out what the final product will look (and sound!) like!

Megaherz single soon

Before the hotly anticipated new album Heuchler, Megaherz will release the single Mann von Welt on June 20th. There will be two versions of the single: a basic one with Mann von Welt and Es Brennt, a bonus track from the sold out limited edition of Herzwerk II, and an EP-length limited fan edition version with three additional songs from older albums. As far as I can see, the fan edition is not very necessary unless you’re new to Megaherz and need to sample the older stuff, but the single is a great opportunity to hear Es Brennt, which is an excellent song you might very well have missed the first time around. You can hear a preview of Mann von Welt on Megaherz’s Myspace and official site.

Eisbrecher’s single detailed

The first single from Eisbrecher’s upcoming album Sünde will be titled “Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein?”, and it will be released on July 11th. This is, however, a Germany-only release, so completionists will have to pay an extra buck or two (or more like ten) if they want to get their hands on this release. No cover or tracklisting has been made public as of yet, but if the previous singles by Eisbrecher are of any indication, this one should too sport a couple of remixes and possibly a bonus song or other small feature alongside the main track itself.

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter single

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, a well-respected German trash metal outfit will release a single titled Der Weg on 27th June. The single features two songs from the upcoming full-lenght release Licht, which doesn’t have a release date yet, and two bonus tracks. The physical CD version of the single published by Nuclear Blast is limited to only 1000 copies, as it was originally planned to only be available via iTunes. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter also released a live DVD earlier this year.

Unheilig’s Spiegelbild EP revealed

The tracklisting and cover design for Unheilig’s Spiegelbild EP have been finally revealed. True to the style of the EPs before, this release is limited to just 3333 pieces and has a total of three different versions of the title song, a new version of the earlier single An deiner Seite and also a trio of completely new Unheilig tracks. Spiegelbild will be released on 26th July.

Laibach’s Dead in Trbovlje in July

Laibach have pushed back the release of their new DVD, which was originally slated for release on 16th June, to 26th July. Titled Dead in Trbovlje, the DVD will feature a full live concert from their widely acclaimed Volk tour, four music videos and on top of that, six of the background screens/videos Laibach used in their Volk shows. There’s also a short commentary on the tour.

Thanks to Nadja for all the tips!

That’s it for now. I know there’s a ton I missed, but at least we have something to cover up the massive time gap we’ve been experiencing. Here’s hoping that Greg will be back in full force soon!

Check out the tracklistings for these items after the jump…
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Straftanz’s EP released today

Straftanz released their EP Tanzt Kaputt, Was Euch Kaputt Macht! today (16th May). This is Straftanz’s second release since their self-titled debut EP. Straftanz’s music is straightforward industrial dance music with some clear EBM influences. You can get an idea of this sonic assault on their MySpace, where they have a couple of generous samples from the current EP and also some older material for you to listen.

You can order the fresh EP with a pretty atrocious cover from at least Alphamusic.de for 5,49 €, or if you’re in the States, you can find it at Isotank for $11,99.

I’ve hidden the tracklisting for Tanzt Kaputt, Was Euch Kaputt Macht! and also a video for the title song behind the link at the end of the post.

Unheilig’s next EP to be Spiegelbild

Following the smashingly successful album Puppenspiel and the accompanying single An Deiner Seite, Unheilig will be releasing a new EP in July. Spiegelbild, track #2 on Puppenspiel was chosen by the fans in an extensive voting to be the next EP, just like the previous Unheilig EPs Freiheit and Astronaut. And, just like those ones, Spiegelbild will boast numerous versions of the title song and other tracks from Puppenspiel and also some all-new material recorded specifically for the EP. Unfortunately, no tracklisting has been published as of yet. Spiegelbild will be released on 19th July, and it will be limited to just 3333 copies worldwide. The most certain way of obtaining this release seems to be through emso.de, but you’ll have to wait till June 1st to preorder it.

If you somehow still aren’t familiar with Unheilig’s magnificent, electronically enhanced rock antics, you can check out a few samples on Unheilig’s MySpace site. Additionally, you can watch the video for the latest single cut An deiner Seite hidden behind the link.

Eisblume’s Unter Dem Eis

And finally, just a reminder: the lovely gothic pop band Eisblume just released their debut EP Unter dem Eis today! See the previous post on the subject for track listing, a video for the title song and more.

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