Well, that’s a wrap for Netherlands instrumentalists Tank86. The Tilburg-based four-piece have decided to call it a day after two full-lengths, the latest of which, Obey (discussed here), was released in 2015 on Rising Magma Records and Lighttown Fidelity Records. That offering followed 2011’s Rise (review here) and found the four-piece of guitarists Joost Kruiswijk and Harold Aling, bassist Jochum van Weert and drummer Rogier Berben exploring textures of trumpet and trombone amidst the suitably dominant riffing of “Conquistador” and making a track like “Piledriver” live up to its name.

Their 2012 split with Belgians SardoniS helped spread the word of what they were up to, but Tank86 were ultimately a well-kept secret of the Netherlands heavy underground, likely too aggro for some heavy rock heads, but still more grooving than someone of the punch-you-in-the-face-metal sphere would be looking for. It’s hard sometimes for bands between two worlds to make an impression. If not fitting in was easy, everyone would do it.

All the best to the guys in Tank86 in their future musical and/or other creative endeavors, whatever they might entail. They’ve got some last shows coming up at the end of the year and you can see those dates in with their announcement below, as posted on the social medias:

Heavy friends,

We bring you the sad news that TANK86 is coming to an end.

After cultivating our own particular brand of instrumental heaviness over the past 13 years, we have now run out of diesel and have to put our mighty machine to a halt. We have always taken this band very seriously and to us TANK86 only has 2 modes: full charge ahead or full stop. With slowly dwindling morale we decided to pull the lever.

Needless to say we want to shout a huge huge TANK YOU to all who have supported and cheered on our path of instrumental destruction over the years. We’ve had an awesome ride!

TANK86 is not about to die silently of course. We will be doing a bunch of farewell shows in December and we very much invite you to come and have your face melted by instrumental riffage one last time and drink beers and share war stories afterwards:

December 8th: Faster & Louder XV, MC Heracles, Retie (BE)
December 9th: Plupub, Nijmegen (NL)
December 15th: LittleDevil Bar, Tilburg (NL)
December 16th: RARE GUITAR, Munster (DE)

And since we have boatloads of merchandise left and because we are greedy dudes who would like to milk every last penny out of this enterprise before we retire to our own private islands in the Pacific: We have made everything in our webshop cheap, so this is a great time to grab yourselves some TANK86 merch: http://store.tank86.com/

Cheers & stay heavy!
TANK86

https://www.facebook.com/TANK86
https://twitter.com/tank86rock
https://www.instagram.com/tank86band/
https://tank86.bandcamp.com/
http://www.tank86.com

Tank86, “Vault” official video

You could ask me exactly just what the gosh darn heck is going on in Dutch four-piece Tank86‘s new video for the song “Vault” — taken from their Obey album, which is out on Jan. 30 — and if it came to it, I could probably make up something plausible, but the underlying truth is that, yeah, I pretty much have no idea. There are two characters, and they fight, and it’s in stop-motion, and one of them is wearing one of those weird Eyes Wide Shut plague masks, and there’s heavy riffs and they fall down and some of it kind of reminds me of Street Fighter 2 and then they’re both on the ground and then the one guy gets up and leaves. Okay.

Why were they fighting, and what’s up with that mask? I don’t know. Probably better to just roll with the riffs and not worry about the rest. The video was shot and directed by Jelle van Dun of Animate the World, and if you’re epileptic or get a headache from watching quick, jerky movement, you might just want to put the song on in the background and let it play out, but otherwise, there is something hypnotic about it, and though the clip like the track itself is wordless, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the strange narrative of this nighttime battle somewhere, in some city, at some time. I guess that’s probably the whole idea.

Obey will be out next year. More info on the album and the clip follows the player below. Enjoy:

Tank86, “Vault” official video

Dutch instrumental heavyweights TANK86 have released a music video for the track “Vault” from their new Album “OBEY”, scheduled for release on Lighttown Fidelity / Rising Magma records in January 2015. The band just completed a successful kickstarter campaign to raise funds fo the follow up of 2011’s critically acclaimed “Rise”.

The video depicts an atmospheric battle between two grim figures shot in full stop-motion.

TANK86 has been creating its own particular brand of heavy instrumentalism since 2005. Two guitars, bass and drums are all the tools this band needs to get their heavy point across. A high dosage of riffs, harmonized layers and unconventional song structures effectively dismiss any need for vocals. No time for singing when you are pounded into oblivion…

Tank86 on Thee Facebooks

Tank86 website

Animate the World website