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KATZENJAMMER Beat The Milk Can! Story online since: 25.09.2009 / 09:58:46 .........................................................................................................................................................  What have a milk can and a trumpet in common? Before you puzzle about this question until next week’s update: both are music instruments made of metal. Milk can = music instrument?! Yes, god damn it! Just visit a concert of Norwegian quartet KATZENJAMMER and persuade yourself! What can you await from a four ladies who play instruments like this one…  …and who play on everything they can get their hands on? I can tell you, because I just returned from a concert of the cat women. If you dare to attend one of their shows – yes, it’s definitely a show and you should dare! - you can expect a sweeping whirlwind of highly passionate music mixing folk, pop, rock, polka, gospel and music influences from the last 100 years (at least) into a crazy, nevertheless serious style of its own. I don’t know how much whiskey these ladies add to their daily ration of milk, but on stage they have ants in their pants, play quite an amount of instruments – including the milk can as part of the drum set – which they change inside the band from song to song. Their performance is just stunning: there’s so much energy, creativity, power and spontaneous action that I can’t imagine this music leaving anybody with a still pounding heart unmoved. In Dortmund KATZENJAMMER played many songs of its already lively debut album "Le Pop” in a way that makes the recordings sound… not that lively, to say the least. KATZENJAMMER is more than music, it has bonds to theatre and freak show, to circus and vaudeville acts.  The faithful readers of agm.com know that we sometimes debate the question of how to define avant-garde metal and that we keep on wiggling around airy descriptions. And of course the question why KATZENJAMMER is presented in this context is obvious since it is not a metal band. Remember the milk can? Metal instrument? Okay, the connection is really a bit constructed, but wait: if there exists something like an "avant-garde” approach in music, then KATZENJAMMER surely personify this specific ferventness and the spirit of artistic freedom, moreover they kick ass with much more energy than many metal bands sticking to the stereotypical schemes since they live and breathe every single note on stage with unparalleled intensity. Can you imagine a female version of early Finntroll exponentiated to a maximum beyond style borders? It’s not the question whether you give this band the chance; it’s more about the band giving you the chance to discover them at this relatively early point of their career before they obtain world domination…  Thor Wanzek |
