Today it's time for the letter E. Warning, there's a wall of text following!
The Band:
I chose "Eisregen" for the letter E. They are one of my favorite bands, but since they only sing in german, they are propably not very well known outside of german speaking countries.
Eisregen (which translates to "Ice Rain") is a German death metal/black metal band which formed in 1995 in Thüringen (Thuringia). Their lyrics are often very morbid and focus on dying, killing, bleeding, splattering... you know the deal. Because of their lyrics Eisregen got the attention of German authorities, causing the indexing of three of their albums, namely "Krebskolonie" (Cancer Colony), "Farbenfinsternis" (Colour Darkness) and "Wundwasser" (literally 'Woundwater', or 'Water from wounds').
Unlike "normal" indexing (which means publicity and selling to minors are forbidden), "Krebskolonie" is not allowed to be played publicly at all in Germany. This means the band is not allowed to play any songs from this album live even for adult public. The reason given was the lyrics, described as "cruel, inhuman, misogynistic and brutalising". The band could not fight the indexing as their label Last Episode (which they left afterwards) did not inform them.
Although Eisregen were criticized for their horror and splatter lyrics, their songs also have a certain (morbid and humoristic) background and sometimes even deal with social or historical topics (e. g. "Schwarze Rose", "vom Muttermord", "Ripper von Rostow", "Eisenkreuzkrieger", "17 Kerzen am Dom") in a fictional way.
In 1998 the band released their first full album "Zerfall" (Decay). The production quality of this album is quite bad, but the album recived some positive feedback. This album is more or less a Black Metal album, no clean vocals here, mostly screams and a few growls.
Also in 1998 the second album "Krebskolonie" (Cancer Colony) was released. A new member joined the band: A violonist. The violine became a very important instrument on the following albums. The vocals also changed, fewer screams, more growls.
In 2000 the album "Leichenlager" (Morgue) followed. The lyrics where still morbid, but the band also began to concentrate on more serious themes, like religion (in the title track) or human behavior in general (in the song "Die Seele der Totgeburt" [soul of the stillborn child].
Also the band was confronted with accusations of them being Neonazis, which sadly isn't that uncommon in germany for a band that plays extreme music (the list of bands which have been accused to be extremly right-winged is propably longer than the list of bands which have NOT been accused). The band responded with the song "Heer der Ratten" (Army of Rats) in which they describe the right-winged community as an army of rats, who blindly follow their leader and who are brain dead.
2001, the album "Farbenfinsternis" (Colour Darkness) is released, but the label of the band "Last Episode" was going bankrupt, so the release was delayed for a short while.
This album has a bit more brutal lyrics than the predecessor, also another so called "cycle" is released here. On their debut album Eisregen released the cycle "pestilence", which contained 4 songs which covered a story of a young man who lives in a village during the times of the black death.
This album contains the cycle "Farbenfinsternis", which has 5 chapters. This cycle is about a man who is haunted by nightmares in the first chapter. In the second chapter the man loses his feeling for time, he hears voices calling him and a creature from a "nether world" is trying to get hold of him.
The third chapter describes how the creature overtakes the mind of the protagonist. In the 4th chapter the creature orders the protagonist to skin himself and to rip out his own heart. The 5th chapter is about how the creature is about to take over the control of our world.
Because of the problems with their old label the band cannot work too hard on a new album, so the next album is released in 2004 and it is called "Wundwasser" (Wound Water). Agan the lyrics feature more serious themes, like "Vom Muttermord", which is about a guy who kills his mother because she abused him as a child.
The 6th album "Blutbahnen" (Blood Tracks) is released in 2007. The violonist left the band (for reasons I don't know), so there are hardly any violin parts on this album. Because of this I didn't like it for a very long time, but now I think it's a pretty good album. Also, this album reached position #32 in the charts, so it's the most successful album for this band.
This album contains a song about the rampage of Robert Steinhäuser, who killed 16 people and himself when he went on a killing spree at his old school in Erfurt. But this song is not prainsing the act, but instead they try to handle the events (Eisregen are from Erfurt as well).
One line of the lyrics: "Denn allen Fragen der Hinterbliebenen entzieht er sich durch diese feige Tat, Was hättest Du all jenen geantwortet, Denen blieben nur die Tränen am Grab" which means: "He evades all questions [by shooting himself], what would you have told all those, who had nothing but their tears at the gravesides" (a very rough translation, but I hope I could translate the meaning of the line)
"Blutbahnen" is the last album I own/know (it's hard to get a hold of their ablums in Germany, so I only own a copy of Leichenlager, Farbenfinsternis and Wundwasser), but they released two more albums:
In 2008 "Knochenkult" (Bone Cult) and "Schlangensonne" (Snake Sun) in 2010.
The songs:
I thought long and hard about which song I should chose. The lyrics are quite important to understand the concept of and the fascination for Eisregen, but since their only song that is in english is a cover version I decided against the english song.
Instead I will present you more than one song. As I've told you before, Eisregen is one of my favorite bands, so I really cannot chose only one track to represent the band. ^^
So yeah, here's six songs from their first six albums.
The first song is "Und über allem weht der Wind so kalt", the first part of the "pestilence cycle". The lyrics describe how the black death comes into the village and how nearly everybody of the population dies.
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The next song is the title track of their second album "Krebskolonie". It is about a fictitious virus (simply called "cancer" in the song) that infects the majority of the population. Encampments are created where the "positives" have to go, so they won't infect the "negatives". This song also features some very morbid humor: "Der Hunger zwang mich heute von den Toten zu essen, Der Geschmack war zwar bitter, aber sonst OK" - "The hunger forces me to eat from the dead, The taste is rancorous, but else OK"
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"Die Seele der Totgeburt", the 7th song on the third album "Leichenlager". As mentioned above, this song is about an stillborn child. It dies because it cannot cope with all the madness, coldness and irrational behaviour in the world outside the womb.
At the end of the song the question about where the soul of somebody who never lived is going. "What means death to somebody who never lived?"
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On to the 4th album "Farbenfinsternis". This is the first track "Meine tote russische Freundin" (My dead russian girlfriend). It's about a man who cheats on his wife. He rented a flat in the city for his "adventures", but with this russian girl everything wents wrong. He bites her throat, she dies, he vomits on her body. But - as his mother always told him: "Bring to an end what you have begun", so he has sexual intercourse with the corpse. He tries to conserve her "for eternity" and he thinks he's done a good job. Only problem is "what now lies on the floor no word can tell, but you can't have everything".
Maybe this short summary can't get across the humor of the song, but you should listen to it anyway. It's quite funny.
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Next is the song "Ripper von Rostow" which is based on the story of Andrei Chikatilo, who was also called "The Rostov Ripper" and who has murdered at least 52 women. It's the 4th track on "Wundwasser".
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6th and last song for today is "Schlachthaus-Blues" (Sloughterhouse blues), the 9th track on "Blutbahnen". It's about a man who is rejected by four young girls. They laugh at him because he was asking them out. As a revenge, he kills them.
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The covers:
I uploaded a file to the NG Dump with all 6 covers here.