The Swiss industrial band The Young Gods are releasing a new album called Knock On Wood this Friday, April 18th. This isn’t any normal album for them, however. It’s actually an acoustic album with 11 of their best songs including “I’m The Drug” from their 2007 album Super Ready/Fragmenté. They have picked up an acoustic guitar or two and started using much softer percussion during some of their recent concerts, and I guess it has led to this new album. Knock On Wood sounds beautiful, a very different approach to The Young Gods who are usually anything but acoustic. Aside from the music part of the album, it also comes with a DVD of live concert footage recorded during the past few years.

Where can I find it?
Knock On Wood is being released on Muve Recordings in Switzerland and on Play It Again Sam elsewhere in Europe, but they both seem to have forgotten about The Young Gods. Their new album has absolutely no distribution, I couldn’t find it in anywhere online. I don’t know how any label expects to slow down pirated music if they don’t make it available for anyone to buy, but that’s a whole different conversation… Anyway, hopefully someone will stock it once it’s actually released.

The Young Gods - Knock On Wood tracklisting:
01. Our House
02. I’m the Drug
03. Everythere
04. Gasoline Man
05. Speak Low
06. Charlotte
07. Ghost Rider
08. Longue Route
09. She Rains
10. Freedom
11. Skinflowers

The Swiss electro-metal band Metallspürhunde has a strange fascination with dogs. I don’t know if it’s caused by their upbringing or maybe something in the water, but whatever it is, one apparent side effect is the ability to produce some pretty cool music, like their current album Amokmensch. Since then, they have been busy in the studio working on a bunch of new songs for a few different releases. They released a free Web-EP in October 2006, and one year later they have announced a new single.

Just a little about their Web-EP. Metallspürhunde announced their Web-EP Nackt last year as the band’s first attempt at releasing their music for free. Nackt consists of 5 songs the band made as unplugged versions of some of their older songs. Instead of electric guitars and synthesizers, they used acoustic guitars, xylophones and accordians to create the music. I’ve noticed a lot of bands doing this recently, and it seems to have worked pretty well for Metallspürhunde. You can download MP3s for the Web EP Nackt here. It may be a year old, but it’s still worth it for free.

Now for the new release: Metallspürhunde has a new single “Was Hat Dich Bloss So Ruiniert” coming next week (no exact date has been announced). The band made a video for the song and you can see a making-of video on their MySpace page. Their site doesn’t really reveal any other information, and I haven’t found it online in any stores yet, so it’s still a little bit of a mystery. In any case, a new single usually signifies that an album is not too far away, so we may soon be hearing more from Metallspürhunde soon.

Nackt Web-EP tracklist:
01. Altes Herz
02. Operation Bilderstrum
03. Huldigt Eurem Neuen Gott
04. Sieh Hinauf
05. So Muss Das Sein

“Was Hat Dich Bloss So Ruiniert” single tracklist:
Not available yet