If the Bandcamp posts tell us anything, it’s that we can’t leave any stones unturned when searching for the galvinizing new music that’s to soundtrack our lives. A prime example would be Germany’s Lantlos, which actually aren’t industrial or prog or speed metal, to name a few things Germany’s typically known for.
What are they? One thing nabbing me about them is that lead singer Markus Seigenhort sounds very similar to Matt Talbott from ’90s alt-rockers Hum, who of course just issued the laid-back prog-rock masterpiece Inlet last year that’s really like a grunger’s wet dream, particularly one who appreciates expansive song structures.
Anyway, it might be time for Lantlos to take the baton on radio rock of which the once-succinct Hum used to lay claim to a portion. The songs on their new album Wildhund bellow in, issue booming, tight statements in nu metal (think Linkin Park covering Incubus with Travis Barker on drums), but typically get things done in under five minutes, with a couple of scant exceptions. I mean, I could turn to our 103.9 WRBR “The Bear,” our sad excuse for a rock station, hear Lantlos and feel like rock and roll were alive all over again, maybe to even where I’d foster the delusional hope of getting a seasonal volunteer gig at the station.
The question is going to be, essentially, whether the listening public is ready for this band’s ambiguous, metaphorical lyricism. It seems like we’re on a pretty Naziist kick these days of every song pertaining to heterosexual romance, at least here in Middle America and within our corporately rendered public musical outlets. Lantlos is a band that to an extent does require an attention span (uh-oh), with songs like “Cocoon Tree House,” which, though stylishly shifting from phase to phase throughout, never really conjeals into one memorable or anthemic chorus. Lantlos, in this way, though, are a metal band, through and through, issuing constant polyrhythms and phrasing unorthodoxies amidst all of these full-bodied rockers. It’s the way they blend tightness with a Hum-drenched approach to celestial melody and gorgeous sound, though, that I think makes them special, and could make them the favorite band of high schoolers and former Iron Maiden roadies, alike, with the proper promotion and exposure.