Fuehler...

There isn’t much information out there on the German band Fuehler from what I can tell. However, I guess it’s not surprising as their self-titled album that came out on Amanita Records in 1996 was their one and only full-length release. Apparently the band either drifted off into obscurity or disintegrated soon after the album came out. It really is a shame too, because the album is pretty amazing and was actually really ahead of its time.

With metallic post-rock becoming more and more popular these days, I would definitely suggest people look into finding this album. While it’s not exactly the carbon copy of what we hear these days, it definitely displays an early interest in the genre. However, the band doesn’t completely settle on that one niche. Although their music remains to be fairly melodic, there are instances where the melodies are also made up a nice sheet of underlying noise that is reminiscent to the likes of Glenn Branca or Caspar Brotzmann. The lead track “Harry” pretty much sums up the bands style. The seven minute masterpiece rides the fence of possibly being prog, however near the end brings it together for one absolutely epic ending that has one of the most ear pleasing riffs I’ve heard. No lie. However that’s probably my one and only complaint for the album, that the opener kind of steals the show for the rest of the time. While a number of the other songs on the album are fairly stunning as well, none really ever compare or stack up to “Harry”. Still, this album is pretty incredible, both for the band members’ musicianship and for it being a slight pre-cursor for a lot of today’s post-rock influenced music.

Fuehler – Harry [MP3]
Fuehler – Teufel 3 [MP3]
Fuehler – Greifen [MP3]

This may or may not be out of print these days; however for those that are interested it does look like Crucial Blast has it available still. I strongly urge those of you that are quite into the more metal side of post-rock to check this out. Amazing stuff.