Bethlehem (band)

Bethlehem
Origin Grevenbroich, Germany
Genres Black metal, black/doom, avant-garde metal, gothic metal, Dark metal
Years active 1991–present
Labels Red Stream Inc
Associated acts Pavor
Deinonychus
Members Niklas Kvarforth
Olaf Eckhardt
Jürgen Bartsch
Steve Wolz

Bethlehem is a German heavy metal band from Grevenbroich, formed in 1991 by Jürgen Bartsch and Klaus Matton. Before starting Bethlehem, Bartsch and Matton used to play in a German thrash metal band Morbid Vision. Bethlehem have been credited for inventing the heavy metal style dark metal, named after their first full-length album. Many of their lyrics revolve around sickness, morbidity, suicide, death and madness, and may to some extent be personal to the band.

History

Band

Bethlehem was formed by Jürgen Bartsch in 1991. They recorded a few demos in the early 90s before releasing their debut album "Dark Metal" in 1994, which featured Andreas Classen on vocals. On their second full-length album Dictius Te Necare (Latin: You must/should kill yourself), Classen was replaced with Rainer Landfermann on vocals (known as the bass player in the German death metal band Pavor). Landfermann's vocals were particularly extreme, described by critics and fans alike as "one of the sickest and most extreme voices you'll ever hear from a human being".[1] On S.U.I.Z.I.D. his place is taken by Marco Kehren from the band Deinonychus. Guido Meyer de Voltaire, the vocalist from Schatten aus der Alexanderwelt and Mein Weg, is also well-known with his band Aardvarks. Andreas Classen, vocalist on Dark Metal also did vocals for Shining, Dark Creation (German band), Paragon Belial, Made of Iron, Kadathorn, Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult. Over the years Bethlehem modernized their style and so the early black and doom metal influences are now hardly present, the band favouring a more Neue Deutsche Härte (New German Hardness) and electronic approach. In 1998 Bethlehem collaborated on the soundtrack for the American underground movie Gummo with the tracks "Schuld Uns'res Knöcherigen Faltpferds" and "Verschleierte Irreligiösität".

Controversy

Until "Dictius Te Necare", Bethlehem faced censorship and was even banned from playing in some German cities. It started when guitarist Klaus Matton gave one copy of their first demo to a 14-year-old boy. After a while, the boy's mother started to call the band, saying that because of their music, her son become aggressive and built a "Satanic altar" in his room. In cooperation with other parents, they started a crusade against Bethlehem and their "satanic" music. Ironically, Bethlehem were never satanic, althogh they occasionally use anti-religious themes and imagery.

Dark Metal

Jürgen Bartsch, founder and bass player of Bethlehem, group that created the subgenre, defines dark metal this way:

“ 'Dark Metal' is a lifestyle, probably more than this. To the time we started with our own music, some of us made some ugly experiences with things like suicide or death in general. Myself was just back from the big German city I once lived in, where I lost nearly all of my friends and social contacts coz of drug overdoses or just coz they were bored by life in general and therefore killed themselves. Of course I also lost people who were very close to me which totally shocked my complete appearance, from one day to the other let me feel lost and lonely again. When I came back into this miner´s ghost-town here, I had no friends, no nothing but only was buried in pain and suffering. Bethlehem was a way out, it totally helped to explain all those negative feelings and emotions into something so beautiful, which made it so easy to change all those dark things into something which always was a huge hold in my life, into music. Our former guitarist, Klaus Matton also lost his father who committed suicide and lost his mom who died from cancer and surely experienced everything in a similar way than I did. The others, Steinhoff and specially Classen came from broken homes and when I met them for the very first time, I very strongly felt that they also were completely lost. Basically four people came together, of such a kind that they all deeply were buried into something really dark, like living in a huge black hole. With no way out, no options or possibilities. Complete darkness, mental darkness. So the only chance to not follow the circumstances was to destroy darkness with music and though this was done instinctly, I believe today that the creation of a band like Bethlehem was the only chance to save our all lifes. Not as a therapy or so, coz the therapy to that time were cigarettes and alcohol, more a promising path of light, completely born in the subconscious. We never discussed things like that but we all wanted to give it a name. Do remember this one rehearsal, shortly before we started recording our first demo, when suddenly our singer said: "The music is not evil, but it is dark.“ We all looked at each other and we knew it, that we exclusively play 'Dark Metal' and nothing else. ”

Discography

Albums

EPs

Splits

Demos

Other publications and cooperations

Members

Current members

[2]

Former members and cooperations

References

  1. ↑ Panagiotou, Kostas. "Bethlehem - Dictius Te Necare". Doom-metal.com. Archived from the original on 2008-04-16. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
  2. ↑ http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Bethlehem/1122

External links

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