Year: 2021
Total Time: 49.04
Label: AFM Records

Here we are dealing with another release that belongs to the NDH genre, otherwise the Neue Deutsche Harte (“New German Hardness” in English). It is a musical subgenre that has developed and has success mainly in German-speaking countries (Germany and Austria), where these bands fill large stadiums and have many fans. The first band that started this genre was RAMMSTEIN back in 1995, with their first album, and then everyone tried to imitate them sometimes successfully like OOMPH !, UNHEILING, EISBRECHER, MEGAHERZ, sometimes not. SCHATTENMANN, being the solo project of Frank Herzig (the former STAHLMANN guitarist) with “Chaos” release, cannot probably do it successfully. And even if they use the classic recipe to produce this music, meaning harsh German vocals, hard guitars, a lot of electronic keen in Industrial / Ebm forms in equal doses with the guitars, dark synths reminiscent of Gothic, a regular drummer and not a Drum Machine, melodies that are between Metal/Rock and Industrial.

The problem is that because they follow exactly this recipe, they have nothing new to add in this particular genre. In fact, this is not their debut but their third album. Having heard both of their previous albums I find an improvement, dealing with a more straightforward Metal turning. However, they cannot reach STAHLMANN’s success (one of the best bands of this genre) at all. Musically speaking, the band is really close to the sound of ERDLING and possibly close to the commercial albums of OOMPH!. I would also prefer their vocals to be a bit harsher. Finally, I was bothered by the fact that in their official video clips, the funny element is shown a lot, as in the ridiculous “Cosima” but also in “Abschaum”, at a music genre that I personally consider as serious. I singled out the songs “Chaos”, “Voodoo”, “Choleriker” (a very catchy song ) and above all the very aggressive “Spring” (a collaboration with the metal band JBO) – I wish all their songs were like that – but generally the album is a bit indifferent and commercial, as the same pattern is repeated until the end (15 songs in total!). They will certainly have a success in German-speaking countries, especially when they have such a big label as AFM behind them.

In conclusion, I know that this genre has no fans in Greece, neither metalheads nor industrialists. I personally like this genre and I have a lot of its albums in my discotheque. However “Chaos” will be not one of them. I would prefer to listen to OST + FRONT, EISBRECHER, the old OOMPH! and STAHLMANN as I said, but above all, everything from RAMMSTEIN….

Rating: 5/10
Editor: Dimitris Argyrakis
Related Link: SCHATTENMANN – Facebook Page