The German trio with the peculiar name creates music that lies between two musical poles that can never be reconciled. The structure, instruments and arrangements sound like they came straight out of a jazz lounge, combating the jingling of ice cubes in cocktail glasses with pleasant and unobtrusive background music. The tempo, on the other hand, this tenacious crawling forward as though being held back by an invisible force, but also the deft and dynamic instrumental skills clearly take their influences from doom metal. The band’s roots are in the metal and hardcore scene, but the members soon developed a sound that’s most reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti’s ghostly film scores. Slowness is at the heart of the band’s musical concept, and anyone who believes radical music needs to be loud and fast should attend a concert by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. With song titles like «Geisterfaust» or «Black Earth», and matching dark graphics, the band has always managed to act as an anti-pole to the calm, meandering, almost pleasant sounds of their music. And it’s the stubbornness of their diminishment, the refusal to break out of their mould, that makes them one of the most interesting and radical bands.
