A day at the record store (I)

There usually comes a time - and it happens around every one or two months - when I just drop by at our local record store and flip through the stands of vinyl. I usually go there with the purpose of buying at least one particular record which has been on my radar for quite some time. But most of the time I buy some more, because I stuble across this one record I have been looking for for a long time. Or this other one which just came out and I just happen to have enough money to buy that one as well. So things keep piling up and I was lucky enough to escape the clutches of evenmore records that wanted to be bought. This is what I got today:

TURBOSTAAT - Vormann Leiss LP
Turbostaat fits really well into the brand of northern German punkrock which mostly is influenced by bands which featured Jens Rachut. In particular those bands would be Angeschissen, Blumen am Arch der Hölle, Dackelblut, Oma Hans and just recently Kommando Sonne-nmilch. Enigmatic lyrics, sung with a little less melody than you'd expect from the music, which sounds very melancholic. Turbostaat are one of the better epigones of this type of music and all their records mean a lot to me. Their live performances were always very entertaining as well.
Now they released their first output on a major label and it really looks like nothing has changed,. Since their last record they have been on tour with German big shots Beatsteaks who enabled Turbostaat to get their foot in the door to the MTV generation. So now they attract a somewhat different audience, which at first always is painful to fans who followed what they were doing for a long time. But in the end it's the band's decision and with records like this one they have every right to do as they please. Here we have 11 wonderful songs, a huge booklet with all the lyrics, pictures and so on. You should get this one.

DENY EVERYTHING - Fire This Time LP
Next up are Deny Everything, local heroes, as you might say. They are from Cologne and their favourite band is obviously Lifetime. It might also be Propaghandi, if you read songtitles like "If there was a god, wouldn't he make people like you just shut the fuck up?", "Apparently it's still just boys' fun" or "Pariotism is so 19th century". Or it might even be all those early 80s hardcore bands from the states who used to play this stop-and-go type of hardcore music that just kept you going and going and going. The band has been around for quite some time evolving from a rather mediocre melody punkrocking outfit which was called Morning Wood to a all out war hardcore machine with the right hand for brilliant melodies and hooks. Their live shows are an experience and you should really catch them on stange if you have the opportunity. A brilliant debut.

OMEGA MASSIF - Geisterstadt LP
Last but not least it's Omega Massif from Bavaria. The first tie I came across this band was when someone of their lineup posted a song on some messageboard. This is the heavy stuff in the vein of bands like Isis, Neurosis or Pelican. Slow, hard, heavy, like a magma stream. What I like about this type of music - and here comes the "pretentious asshole record collector" part - is the way the record is made up. A nice gatefold sleeve, all in brown and yellow colours with pictures of a town where a life has left a long time ago (hence "Geisterstadt"/Ghost Town). Yes, I know that this type of music is very popular at the moment and that there are quite a few bands playing this sort of heavy rocking stuff. But I was listening to another record by some band at the store today and this one is way better. Just the way I like it. Not the same riff for 15 minutes, but still enough monotony to make you feel very medetative. Wonderful stuff.