BEATSTEAKS

"It's a bomb (or grenade, rocket, dynamite or some other preferably menacing expresssion that underlines the musically explosive force of our five friends)!" This is just about the highest praise that the BEATSTEAKS can confer. Don't get the wrong impression here: the five guys from Berlin are all pacifists. Torsten Scholz defines the word "bomb" as follows: "completely sexy, absolutely awesome, mega phat, wonderful, enchanting, nice or even tight, Dude". The goal for ".Limbo Messiah", i.e. the album in question, was thus obvious: "we wanted to set off another couple of bombs again", says singer Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss.

The BEATSTEAKS have already succeeded in creating an unmistakable full-speed-ahead, right-in-your-face sound on their four previous albums. "Smack Smash" (2004) delivered the climax so far and not only was awarded Gold status, but also included three irresistible single hits.

".Limbo Messiah" is completely different and yet still typically BEATSTEAKS. About half of the songs are driven by the catapult energy that you find with American hardcore combos from the Eighties. "Bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat and so on can't play like Pink Floyd, but they had this unbelievable power. On the other hand the Bad Brain did have this diversified musicality," Torsten enthuses. But that's a long way from being all. Besides the mentioned fast-as-lightning outpourings of energy (for example "As I Please", "Bad Brain", "Sharp, Cool & Collected", among others), ".Limbo Messiah" offers a lot of other sounds. "She Was Great" has a funky groove and falsetto vocals; "Soljanka" is a compact rocker crowned with thunderous Keith Moon drums; "E-G-O" turns out to be an adventure that provides new kicks every time you hear it. And in the frantic "Demons Galore" resounds a heartbreaking melancholic lead melody/solo guitar as well as backing vocals that are reminiscent of Queen. "I find Freddie Mercury to be very inspiring. Maybe not the look, but in respect to vocals, lyrics and attitude. He is one of the greatest," says Arnim in praise of the far-too-soon departed entertainment icon.

Besides Queen the BEATSTEAKS also give kudos to The King. "George Harrison met Elvis in Las Vegas when The King was pretty far down. Afterwards Harrison said 'He was great when he was great'", Arnim comments. This statement hit it big right away and is reflected in "She Was Great", switching the sex, however. It is a small gimmick, typical of the BEATSTEAKS. Their lyrics should especially be ambiguous, as drummer Thomas Götz emphasizes: "Every member of the band sees the lyrics differently. Everyone can interpret the lyrics the way they want - that's the cool thing about them."  And Arnim adds: "Some of the lyrics deal with several stories at the same time. You can look at them from various points of view. I interpret them differently than Thomas. That's not a problem for me; the main thing is that an image is created."

The recordings for ".Limbo Messiah" took place between June 2006 and February 2007. The rehearsals began right in the middle of the euphoria surrounding the World Cup Soccer games in Germany. "We had a bomb of a plan, a master plan or no plan at all," says Torsten, letting the cat out of the bag, " we wanted to compose the songs in our rehearsal room between the soccer games. At the end of the day we had only managed to write two songs." Arnim shrugs: "Soccer happened to be more important." In October the combo and producer Moses Schneider drove to Hamburg for two weeks to record the backing tracks at the Gaga Studio. In November they went back to Berlin, where the vocals were thrown around, blown up, shot away or just kept on tape.

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