The Hirsch Effekt: Fearless, Boundless, Peerless
When discussions are held regarding the most influential metal bands hailing from Germany there is a tendency to gravitate towards the likes of RAMMSTEIN, KREATOR and ACCEPT. THE HIRSCH EFFEKT have been sending shockwaves through the underground scenes for over a decade and continue to be criminally overlooked. The trio show frightening levels of innovation throughout their compositions which creates an exciting air of unpredictability when it comes to new material. You never know what the fearless genre-splicing outfit will conjure up next.
It has been a frustrating time for the band with them not having the opportunity to showcase their talents in front of a live audience for the best part of two to three years, especially considering their frenetic energy is something that really has to be experienced live to fully understand the prowess they possess. The pandemic did, however, give them the chance to collaborate with pianist Anthony Williams who crafted piano versions of some of their tracks as well as contributed towards the orchestral versions which comprised the Gregær EP. “We wrote the track Gregær as we wanted to make a track where there was plenty of room to add orchestral elements, paying close attention to the melodies, chords and harmonic structures,” explains bassist/vocalist Ilja John Lappin. “Anthony did a great job of bringing those songs to life with his arrangements.”
The band are poised to release their highly anticipated SOLITAER EP which provides further evidence of their fearless progression as writers, with all three members writing their own individual tracks. “SOLITAER will be a special EP, we have all written a song completely by ourselves without the help of the others,” states Ilja. “We’re really curious to see what our fans will think of them. The three songs which will be presented on this EP are very different from one another stylistically. It’s not going to sound like our previous material so that makes it that bit more exciting. We’ve been sitting on these songs for about a year and a half now. I remember sitting with a mixing engineer back in February 2021. It made no sense to release material during the pandemic if you cannot tour it. We want to present the songs to actual people, in front of a crowd.”
All three members possess the acumen to completely compose a track independently and that is one aspect which makes THE HIRSCH EFFEKT such an enticing prospect. Their creative process can twist and turn in a multitude of directions providing seemingly endless possibilities. “We work in different ways depending on the track. Sometimes someone brings a song forward that is completely produced and basically already written and we just fine-tune and refine everything,” discusses Ilja. “Other times songs can take forever because the direction and vision of the song and what we want it to be become different through time. Anything can happen and the nature of this process is really cool. We never actually know what we’re going to end up with. For SOLITAER I played all of the guitar and bass parts and sang/wrote the lyrics for my track and had Moritz playing the drums. Nils focused on guitar and vocals for his track and myself and Moritz played our parts and then Moritz actually performed every instrument by himself. The only thing he didn’t do was the lyrics because he’s not really into that side of the writing process. I helped him out with the vocal arrangement and together all three of us wrote the lyrics. We’re a very versatile band!”
Whilst not entirely achieving the acclaim that they undoubtedly deserve THE HIRSCH EFFEKT remain thankful for their achievements and the dedicated fanbase they have accrued throughout their vigorous bouts of touring over the years. They show no signs of complacency or intention to rest on their accomplishments. “We love writing music and we never know what the next release will sound like. It’s a blessing that we’ve been able to share our artistic vision and be able to continue doing this,” admits Ilja. “We’re always very open about what the future may hold. We’ve got a lot of touring planned for the remainder of the year and we’re actually almost finished writing our next album which we will record this Winter and we’ll hopefully get released next year. It’s going to be way different than any album we’ve done before. It’s going to be a lot more expansive and a very different approach to what we did with Kollaps.”
SOLITAER is out now via Long Branch Records.
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