NEÀNDER release their new and third album via Through Love Records.
With “III” the Berlin -based band finally breaks the formal boundaries of instrumental alternative music.
Featuring eight new tracks, “III” is a cathartic power trip that miraculously sorts out the chaos in your head. Jack Kerouac’s novel “On The Road” has influenced generations and has never lost its relevance. By telling of the travel experiences of his road-tripping protagonists Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, of drugs, sex and jazz, the Beat author was in fact telling of the longing for freedom and the meaning of a life outside of social conventions. »They have worries, they’re counting the miles (…) and all the time they’ll get there anyway, you see.« We all know the famous quote from Kerouac’s novel of the century – which now also opens the video for “Ultra”, the first single from the new album “III”. “Our songs are like vehicles that take us to new places,” says Michael Zolkiewicz. “By playing them we connect with new people, sometimes complete strangers.”
In fact, on their third album, the Berlin band plays music that, much like “On The Road”, draws its imaginative power from constant movement, a finely balanced dynamic, a perfect beat that constantly pushes forward, pulls back, breathlessly bursts over you – and then allows moments of contemplation again.
A musical power trip, but also a gentle ride. The title fits in with this: you don’t have to get esoteric to recognize an additional level of meaning beyond the profane fact that this is the third neànder album: “III”, i.e. three, symbolizes not least the beginning, middle and end, it stands for a completed cycle whose elements are mutually dependent.
The album begins with the sound of a car door slamming, we hear engine noises, a roar, the journey begins. The aforementioned “Ultra” is then introduced by an atmospheric piano. A storm breaks into this idyll, a martial elemental force in the form of a riff-driven wall of sound, which in turn is overlaid by a melody and alternately surges forward and recedes like a whipped-up sea. The view becomes clear and expands, the majestic riff is indeed: ultra. So there is movement right at the beginning, the rhythm of being on the road.
Snippets like the one with the car door run through the whole album, field recordings that the musicians made between Berlin, Rostock and Copenhagen; they give “III” a framework, even if they are not always as prominently placed as here. It’s details like these that make “III” the most coherent album to date from a band that has finally left all genre restrictions behind with these songs.
Stream the album here on spotify: