Eisbrecher
In the organizer's words:
No star above the horizon - cold front
Sunbathed too long in the wrong light - cold front
Actually, we can keep it short this time. "This is the record I always wanted to make", Alex Wesselsky blurts out dryly, and what else is there to add? Except perhaps: "Kaltfront°!" is the essence of Eisbrecher, a flawless distillate at the end of a long journey through the darkness. The separation from long-time comrade-in-arms and producer Noel Pix, a critical operation including a long stay in hospital and the associated concert cancellations - a critical phase for Alex Wesselsky and his Eisbrecher. As giving up is not an option, they stayed the course and - despite all adversity, headwinds and shoals - reached calmer waters again.
"Kaltfront°!" tells the story of all this. Of the struggles and fears, but also of the confidence and trust in one's own strength. That's why it's not only the best Eisbrecher album of all time. It is also the most important. It symbolizes confidence in one's own abilities, a monumental work that sounds powerful and leaves no doubt for a second as to who is the boss in the German-speaking rock world: Die Schnauze mit Herz. Alexander Wesselsky. Where the songs before were already larger-than-life, wide-legged anthems, "Kaltfront°!" is something like the Marvelization of Eisbrechers: the final transition to the superhero metaverse.
Nothing is the same as it always was
The main thing is that everything is wonderful
Of course, this is not to say that Alex Wesselsky is suddenly satisfied. He will forever remain the "grumbler" of hard guitar music, the one who rubs the world the wrong way, gets upset about society, shows a clear political edge and doesn't hide behind hollow phrases. These are dark times out there, we don't have to fool ourselves. But Eisbrecher's anthems are more than ever the axe for the frozen sea within us. That was a bit Kafka, but Alex certainly has nothing against it. "I'm not a yoga rocker, I can't do without social and political lyrics," he says. "I am and always will be an angry person. I'm a full-time cynic, typically Bavarian, a grumbler, moaner, commentator, I have to have my say on everything. And if I can't, it gets even worse. So there's this band. So there's 'Kaltfront°'!"
A year ago, it was anything but clear that this album would exist. "The partner was gone, I was almost gone too," Alex sums up the events in a less romanticized way. "It was a complete disaster, of course. Noel Pix and I had been working together on Eisbrecher since day one. He was also the producer, so you're kind of the center of power." After almost 20 years, nine records, two of them number one albums, the boat was stuck. "We've grown apart," Alex analyzes. "It's like Pangaea. At some point, the primeval continent broke up. You can't ignore these centrifugal forces. And without this separation, icebreakers would probably no longer exist today."
The winner writes history
And he writes what he wants
There are always losers - but they remain silent
Of course, you inevitably ask yourself: where the hell does all this energy on the record come from? This thrust that pushes you into your chair like a rocket, this hunger? Through a rigorous new beginning, nothing less than that. 2023 everything went to pieces, 2024 the course was set for cold - time for a big server update. Icebreaker 2.0. "I didn't have to prove anything to myself. I know what I can do," Wesselsky clarifies. "I just didn't know if I would survive the year." Things are serious for him, he goes from driver to passenger in his own life. "I stood beside myself in amazement and watched my life from the outside," he looks back. You just keep going - you fight your way through. Step by step. "As long as you have even the slightest chance, your body is doing something to you. It's releasing something so that you don't collapse."
Alex realizes for himself that he needs the band to survive. Perhaps not a completely new realization, but definitely a formative one. He decides to continue Eisbrecher on his own. As captain and helmsman. "Is this the Eisbrecher dictatorship now? Perhaps. I'm a stage animal, an organizer, I'm creative, but someone has to do all the producer work too." Enter Henning Verlage, an old acquaintance in the Eisbrecher crew. When he took over as producer, Alex Wesselsky knew that the valley of tears had finally been crossed. "That was the birth of the new Eisbrecher. I was lying on the floor, counted out and then... BOOM... the defibrillator sends electricity through my body and I rebelled again. That's what it felt like."
I can't and won't be with you any longer
I am and always will be a loner
And that's not all: the two harmonize from day one, complement each other and create a huge, epic and multi-layered Eisbrecher album in just a few weeks, which surprises even them. As if they had locked the elemental force of their stage show in the studio. "Henning Verlage saved the band. He knows our DNA like we do, and we also share the same passion for great rock anthems and the wave feeling of the eighties. I had more fun in the studio than ever before. We wrote so many good songs that the whole world could think the album sucks and I wouldn't care." Um, Alex, can you hear yourself talking? This thing is such a self-runner that the album cover should be pictured next to the Duden entry for self-runner.
Examples? There's the mystical "Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt", an ambiguous, stomping duet with the exceptional voice of Sotiria. Is there even a hint of romance there, Mr. Wesselsky? At the other end of the spectrum lurks "Das neue Normal", a hard-hitting reckoning with a world that only ever steps from the top down. And then, of course, there is the great epic "Fortress of Loneliness", which pulls out all the stops in terms of power and emotionality at the end. "Fought every battle, waged every war, wounded a thousand times and felt nothing", sings Captain Wesselsky with audible emotion. And the lump in the throat comes all by itself.
Eisbrecher have never sounded more diverse, freer, braver or more self-confident. "This is the record I've wanted to make for ages, but couldn't because everything was different in the Eisbrecher system, which lasted 20 years after all," says the frontman quite logically. "This is the thing, the Polaroid photo that depicts the period from 2020 to the beginning of 2025. Five damn hard years of my life." It's okay to get emotional sometimes. Especially after this fateful rollercoaster ride of recent years. And if you want to know for sure: he even plays the harmonica in "Waffen Waffen Waffen" himself. Move over, Dylan!
"Kaltfront°!" soaks up the monumental heaviness of "Sturmfahrt", douses it with a highly flammable cocktail of EBM flare, metallic rumble and the fattest grooves and lights everything with the match of our own inability. It's a monster of an album, big, triumphant, overpowering. Positive brutality! Like, for example, the hard-hitting groove metal monster "Auf die Zunge", which Eisbrecher, together with their 2023 tour support Schattenmann, hammer under the skullcap of the inclined listener. And while we're on the subject of collaborations: The galloping "Zeitgeist" finally unites Alex Wesselsky in the "Eisbrecherverse" with Joachim Witt, the black eminence of German music.
For Alex Wesselsky, "Kaltfront°!" is a minor miracle. The album that almost didn't exist. That's why you automatically listen to it with different ears. Put his sharp-edged statements under the microscope. Because even if Eisbrecher are still Eisbrecher and the sound detonates in its usual breadth: There's definitely a little more Alex in these highly explosive grenades. "The last day, the end is coming", sings Wesselsky in the massive title track. But before the end is a new beginning. Now the view into the future is finally clear again. To cold!
"Kaltfront°!" will be released on March 14, 2025 in various spectacular configurations - as a digipack, double vinyl and fan box including beanie, fan scarf and ice scraper, as well as bundled with a T-shirt or hoodie.
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