9.29.2005

Mensch im Eis



Vorgruppe Mensch im Eis 7" (H'Art, 198?)

There was a time long, long ago when anything thing that wasn't Top 40 rock and roll and that had some kind of edge to it was considered punk or at least new wave. Then one day some one came along and decided that every genre needed a subgenre and every subgenre needed a subsubgenre and so on. Terms which were used by record reviewers to describe a band's sound,
such as "gothic" and "grunge," became genre classifications. Who was responsible? Maybe some smarmy critic or a cynical record industry hack. At this point, it doesn't matter. All I know is it is annoying when I look on the web for information about a band like Vorgruppe and I get tag words such as New Dark Wave. New Dark Wave? My god? Why not resurrect that fop of a genre, Batcave or, better still, New Romantic. What a bunch of bullshit.

Yeah, you guessed it. I know nothing about Vorgruppe. Do a search on the name and you will find that the band's name is German for Support Group or Opening Act. The song roughly translates to Humans in Ice. The record looks to be early 80s and, by the sound of it, these youngsters were definitely one of the many bands under the spell of Joy Division. Unlike a lot of those bands, Vorgruppe pull it off with some charm. The flipside is a slower version of the same song.


Comments:
cool. post.
 
I have a Lp of theirs that is really good... Late 70's/early 80's german post-punk is quite amazing!
 
The intro is almost 1:1 Gang Of Four
 
They came from my hometown.
Herne in Germany i´ve seen them several times life and own mostly all of their records but they are in a bad shape right now.
They were great.
 
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