WAR / DEIBEL - Split

Here's a more than just nice split album I grabbed from the merch table at this year's Pink Tank Festival in Kiel on October 30th!

WAR / DEIBEL - Split (öko surprise marbled vinyl LP) (2023)

If you expect War from Leipzig to play some kind of uhm... War Metal, maybe because you have seen one of their very Black Metalish t-shirts, you'll be surprised that their actual sound not only is a mixture of Doom Metal, Stoner Rock and Grunge, but also includes shoegazy guitars and some delicate harmony vocals.

After seeing them live it took me a while to find the most proper comparisons in SubRosa and even much more so King Woman - both obviously aren't the first references you'd expect from a band of three dudes. Their five tracks (average length four minutes) are awesome and original, making War a great new surprise discovery both on stage and on vinyl for me.

One of those dudes in War plays in another duo called Deibel (which is just a regional German variant of "devil"), so it shouldn't be a surprise that the B-side doesn't sound completely different, but rather like a rawer, bleaker, more brutal version of War, which combines its heavily grooving Sludge sound with hoarse screaming and Black Metal attacks. This slaps your ugly face good!

While in hindsight I would have rather chosen another colour variant of this record (and it already took me so painfully long to decide, haha), I really dig the artwork of the gatefold with two equally great colourful covers. This crushing beauty is available here at Pink Tank Records.