Reflections of Darkness - Music Magazine - Megaherz

Details: Written by: Daniela Vorndran; Published: 15 November 2008

Matrix, Bochum, Germany
14th November 2008
Megaherz, Soon

One of the most important representatives of hard German Rock continues to follow its very own way in 2008. With a new singer and a new album ‘Heuchler’, they continue to follow the course, started with ‘Herzwerk 2’ which leads them away from the Teutonic seeming Metal of past days to modern hard rock with German lyrics. With the new front man Lex, MEGAHERZ wants to interfere in the rock circus again and they’ll go on a large-scale tour in autumn. Furthermore, the band hopes to be able to play a small tour in the US soon. But for now they’ll please the fans here with honest German metal art and on 14th November, it was time for us to join MEGAHERZ in Bochum’s Matrix.

Soon

This Hamburg based band was founded at the beginning of the new millennium now developing step by step their dark atmospheric sound. The debut album ‘End Isolation’ was released in April 2006 containing all in all ten dark rock songs. A second album - ‘Without a trace’ - followed in August 2007. During the last years, the band already supported such bands as 4LYN, BEATSTEAKS or SAMAEL. SOON are Lenny (guitar), Markus (bass), 7even (drums) and Eric (vocals). http://www.soonmusic.net/

Music & Performance
Musically, SOON did not really fit as an opener for MEGAHERZ. They were much “softer”. Anyway they presented dark rock on a very high level with excellent guitar and drum lines as well as uncommon bass work. The modern guitar riffs met melodic chant going under your skin. The interesting arrangements and catchy refrains were surely a trademark of the songs presented during the evening - songs out off both released albums starting with ‘Grown apart’ from the current release and ‘Just an illusion’ from the first CD. One more remarkable thing in Lenny’s guitar work was that he partly used also a drum stock to maltreat it - when not hitting a single tom with it. Singer Eric was the man of the big gestures of the evening. He exactly knew how they worked, I’d say. During the evening, fast rock numbers, like the captivating ‘Buried’ or ‘Estrangement’, changed with slower balladry songs. I have never heard about this band before, but right away their songs impressed me. Surely a band I need to take a closer look at.

Setlist
01. Grown Apart
02. Just an Illusion
03. Our Isolation
04. My Ideas
05. All I wanted
06. High Time
07. Estrangement
08. Without a Trace
09. Desperate
10. Buried

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 8 / 10

Megaherz

The history of the band started back in 1993 in Munich when singer Alexx Wesselsky formed MEGAHERZ together with some other guys. A first demo ‘Herzwerk’ was released in 1995; one year later, the CD ‘Wer bist du’ hit the stores. Several years have passed since then, numerous CDs have been released and the line-up has changed several times. Founder Alexx Wesselsky finally left the band together with Noel Pix in autumn 2002 and founded the band EISBRECHER who is celebrating big success right now. The rest of the band had to find a new singer… Mathias 'Jablonski' Elsholz did the job only a short time… and finally Alexander 'Lex' Wohnhaas joined the band as new singer. After about four years of silence, the band came back with the spectacular chart entry of the latest album ‘Heuchler’ to celebrate 15 years of band history now also on European stages starting on 11th October. MGAHERZ is Lex (vocals), X-Ti (guitar), Wenz (bass), Roland (guitar) and Bam Bam (drums). http://www.megaherz.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/megaherz / http://www.megaherz.com/

Music & Performance
I already had seen two past members of the band - Alexx and Noel - with their new band EISBRECHER on the same venue a few weeks before. Now I was very curious how the remaining band members with new singer and drummer would do at the Matrix. First of all I need to say that it was not as crowded as during the EISBRECHER show, even though the venue was very well filled and the air heated up already long before the show started. During the rebuilding break, also two podiums were placed in on the front rim of the stage, illuminated by a spot each from the bottom. Finally punctual at nine, the band entered the stage and started to rock from the very beginning as if they had never done something else.

Having been absent for some years and just released a new album, the focus of the setlist was put on the new songs. So, the band played nearly all songs from the current album, some of the presented ones were the evening’s opener ‘Das Tier’, ‘Ebenbild’, L’Aventure’, the album’s title track ‘Heuchler’ or the last encore ‘Morgenrot’. But as you might have been expected, people heavily demanded old classics and yes, they have been on the setlist of course. Heavily celebrated and supported by loud chant and screams were such hits as ‘5. März’, ‘Kopfschuss’, ‘Freiflug’ or ‘Miststück’. Last ones we also got to hear during the EISBRECHER show in September and during both concerts people celebrated those songs equally.

Not only the audience had a lot of fun during the show, also the band on stage. Lex was very communicative talking a lot to the audience and telling them how glad they are to be back on stage again and that they want to celebrate a big party tonight. Lex also promised that there would never be again such a long break. Soon after the concert, also the band got to know what it meant to play concerts at the hot Matrix club. Sweat was dripping down their faces and towels were extensively used. Roland and X-Ti on guitars were constantly smiling into the crowd and changed places with Lex on the podiums having built up before several times. All in all this was a very energetic evening. No sign anymore that the band struggled after former singer Alexx called it quits. MEGAHERZ is back and they rocked Bochum!

Setlist
01. Das Tier
02. Liebestöter
03. Jordan
04. Ebenbild
05. Fauler Zauber
06. Herzblut
07. Beiss mich
08. 5. März
09. Kaltes Grab / L’Aventure
10. Glas und Tränen
11. Mann von Welt
12. Kopfschuss
13. Freiflug
14. Ja, genau
15. Alles nur Lüge
16. Heuchler
17. Gott sein
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18. Himmelfahrt
19. An deinem Grab
20. Miststück
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21. Morgenrot