Soldat Hans Premiere Title-Track of New Album Anthaupt
Anthaupt, the third full-length from Swiss post-metallers Soldat Hans, will see release vinyl May 20 through Wolves and Vibrancy Records with a digital edition preceding on April 22, and if you’re unfamiliar with the band, be ready for a multi-tiered heft of atmosphere and tone, a resonant feeling of exploration, and a due portion of skin-peeling harshness and pummel. Last heard from with 2018’s Es Taut (review here) and having made their debut with 2014’s Dress Rehearsal (review here), the band bring a simmer of tension beneath their ambience, and in those moments when the destructive impulse hits, as is the case as the gorgeous instrumental opener “Eighty-Two Percent Chance of Rain” gives way to Anthaupt‘s title-track (premiering below), the impact is no less palpable than the increase in distortion or volume. In six songs and 66 minutes — the runtime of the beast — the five-piece of vocalist/guitarist Omar Hetata, guitarist Omar Fra and Tobias Pfenninger, bassist Jonathan Chaclan, drummer Justin Harrison and various other collaborators — some evidently related, some not — bring to life an engrossing and expansive sound, coming across like the culmination of the band’s willful growth to this point.
To wit, “Anthaupt” finds an early apex as Carol Schuler joins Hetata on vocals, melodic and screaming voices uniting over dense-toned riffing. An organ-laced stretch follows, the melancholy ambience bolstered by trombone from Sebastian Koelman, and as the ensuing procession marches slowly to its finish, it’s the scathe that returns. Schuler proves to be a major presence as Anthaupt plays out, adding to extended pieces like “Speechwriter,” “Cineaste, Cineaste” and closer “The Jubilant Howl” such that the prevailing vibe of Soldat Hans reaching beyond themselves mirrors their forward-thinking creative mindset. The organ/synth contributions of Daniel Gisler — turns out Soldat Hans might just need to become a six-piece — Koelman, the cello by Julia Pfenninger and the backing vocals of Philip Harrison aren’t to be ignored either. Anthaupt is all the more consuming for what each player brings, marking out depths as it moves further through its course, minimal in the early going of “Horse Funeral” but
vibrant in the slow, echoing-feedback-led dirge that results. Comprising the entirety of side B, “Speechwriter” conveys immediacy through a shouted vocal part in its second half set against its lumbering tempo, fiinally giving way to screams that feel brutal in their urgency as well as what they might be doing to the vocal cords responsible for them.
All the while, Soldat Hans as a whole are patient, almost calm in how they bring it all about. Each move is constructed fluidly, and the scope of arrangement adds a cinematic quality, certainly to the ensuing instrumental wash of “Speechwriter” as well as to the build that seems to sweep up the early, wholesome verses of “Cineaste, Cineaste,” an echo of the subtle twang with which the guitar announces “Horse Funeral” prior, before receding once again to a ’70s singer-songwriter duet and, finally, righteously, combining the two ideas before finding even ground at the end. As an album, Anthaupt is plotted and ultra-modern in its evocative breadth, drawing from Earth and Europe’s post-metallic sphere and crafting something individual from them that’s likewise willing to be harsh and beautiful. Soldat Hans have grown bolder since their Dress Rehearsal those eight years ago, and it does not seem that the four since Es Taut have been wasted either if the final, agonizingly mournful march of “The Jubilant Howl” plays out across Anthaupt‘s final minutes, daring to inject a sense of hope — or jubilance, if you like — via guitar amid the harsh screams and lumbering, slow rhythm, readily grandiose and masterfully executed. A beauty of grief that ends where they began, if in a different realization.
Like Es Taut before it, Anthaupt challenges its listener to listen deeper, to appreciate the detail and the level of care put into the execution of these songs, the mixes through which they’re presented, and the complete effect of the textured oil brushstrokes with which the album is ultimately painted. In thinking of how “Anthaupt” represents the 2LP that shares its name, one will not find the picture complete in the 10-minute title-cut, but it does answer for the entirety of the the offering being made in terms of its melody and heft, and its willingness to depart from the early riff-led force of its delivery into and through its peaceful moment before growing even more oppressive. That is, it shows what Soldat Hans are capable of in terms of arrangement and of making their music a physical presence within itself, and the result of hearing it is correspondingly like being physically moved.
Track premiere follows here, along with the preorder link, vinyl breakdown, etc., courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
3rd album by Soldat Hans.
Preorder: https://wolvesandvibrancyrex.bigcartel.com/product/soldat-hans-anthaupt-2×12
ANTHAUPT (WVR 055)
SIDE A:
Eighty-two Percent Chance of Rain (06:48)
Anthaupt (10:44)
SIDE B:
Speechwriter (15:04)
SIDE C:
Horse Funeral (09:37)
Cinéaste, Cinéaste (12:05)
SIDE D:
The Jubilant Howl (11:49)
Mastered by Magnus Lindberg Productions
– limited to 300 copies (200 x black purple egg / 100 x light blue transparent)
– gatefold sleeve inside / out
– 2 x inlays / lyrics sheets
– incl. DL code
Physical Release: May 20, 2022.
Band:
Justin Harrison – Drums
Omar Hetata – Guitar / Vocals
Omar Fra – Guitar
Tobias Pfennninger- Guitar
Jonathan Chaclan – Bass
Collaborators:
Carol Schuler – Vocals
Daniel Gisler – Rhodes, Organs, Synthesizer
Sebastian Koelman – Trombone
Julia Pfenninger – Cello
Philip Harrison – Backing Vocals
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Tags: Anthaupt, Soldat Hans, Soldat Hans Anthaupt, Switzerland, Winterthur, Wolves and Vibrancy Records
