Ralf Dammbruch and his band "Staub" are entering the arena with a strong debut album
called "Trockenzeit". The album comes in a nice digipack and is well produced over
the whole playtime than ks to Alexander Kaschte from Samsas Traum, who is also said
to have discovered and promoted "Staub" right from the beginning.
The music is a healthy mixture of solid guitar work and experimental synthesizer support, with a pleasant voice of mastermind Ralf. Sometimes he growls, sometimes he calmly sings, but he deliveres always a solid performance. However, "Staub" don't sound anything like ordinary metal but rather like moderate Crossover with classical and electronical influences. Kind of experimental.
Staub know to provide the listener with emotional and steady rock music, full of metaphors and topics around god and mankind, but always with a fantastic touch.
The lyrics are always at least "uncommon" and most times very abstract.
What is indeed special about this release is it's political message. Ralf is a
convinced communist and aggressive lines are sometimes found in the songs:
America doesn't look too good in the mirror of "Staub". As i know from "Brandung" (another release of Staub), the criticism of kapitalism and the "money's got the power"-principle is not only motive of this record, but can likely be called the intention behind "Staub"'s foundation.
Once or twice Ralf's opinion stands out in all it's clearness: In "story of pain" he
calls america the "lawyer of fascism". Ofcourse many people may not want to agree with such statements. And ofcourse not all songs have political intentions, but if you are a huge fan of america's foreign policy you should not always listen too closely to the text lines.
Noteworthy is also an ingenious remix of Alexander Kaschte himself, his version of "Treibholz" is an absolute awesome piece of work, it's not actually a heavy metal remix, but a very classical one , it's even sung by himself.
Summed up this is a decent record you should definitely check out if you get the opportunity to!
Score: 
Reviewer: Tobias Weigl
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