Releasing a new single in 2020 after months of worldwide pandemic borders on a miracle under the best of circumstances - Pele Caster managed to go one step further with no less than five new songs.
Their new EP "Hulk" came out in the fall - and with it the clear announcement: Being run-of-the-mill is out of the question. If you want shallow stuff, you have to look further. Pele Caster are, again, as riot brushed as poetic, but at the same time their sound has become much harder and faster.
The band around singer and guitarist Stefan "Pele" Götzer already gets the message across in the first lines of the title song: These, our times are full of uncertainty – aimlessness is never an excuse for lived lethargy. In "Hulk", fear and panic are not allowed to run the show; instead, empathy and the will to be free should take precedence. "I'm not afraid," sings frontman Pele, in German. "Come on, no, I'm not afraid." The driving post-punk guitar suggests a doomsday mood, only to be taken into the future by the lyrics, bass and drums.
In the search for superheroes and in the desire neither to sink nor to leave castaways behind, the ambiguity of the song and EP title seems particularly charming and clever. A Hulk – that is not only a comic hero, but also a ship without propulsion.
With the single release "Alles eskaliert" Pele Caster clearly take a political stance and gives free rein to their anger at a world in which right-wing ideas and intolerance again take up a frightening amount of space. After all, don!t we all know the thoughts that the lyrics pose as questions in the dramatically melodic chorus all too well while consuming the news or reading social media? "What's going on? What happened?" Pele Caster are still explicitly irritated on the "Hulk" EP about the sick and senseless world - and wonder in shock: „Is there no one left to rebel?"
Already in the past Götzer and Co. have impressed with wonderful, poetic declarations of love (and occasionally – for the listeners – the odd all-beautiful heartbreak). With "Kapitänin" the Ruhrvalley band manages this again - the song is a very personal, but confident and honest thanks to its existence. The existence of a man who keeps the rudder in hand and smoothes every wave. The song is a compass to happiness, and belongs on this record like a buoy of optimism and love.
Pele Caster never wants to come across as superficial – thankfully that!s "no option". The eponymous track is downright jangly and demanding, and at the same time as casual as can be. The band doesn't want to have a template imposed on them, doesn't want to be an ordinary act. A promise they make to themselves with songs like "Keine Option". A promise they keep on the entire EP, by the way.
The lyrics of the relationship cracker of a song, „Unbequem", are almost a – literary – homage to W.B. Yeats' "Cloths of Heaven" when Pele sings: "I'm standing with my
feet on your dreams." Though, of course, standing up there isn't ideal – clearly, listening to this dancing is a better way out of an all-suffocating, uncomfortable partnership. But please not out of the Pele Caster world. In that world, dancing works excellently even in times like these which are still uncomfortable for so many people in the world. At home if needs be, but even better live, hopefully soon.
Their new EP "Hulk" came out in the fall - and with it the clear announcement: Being run-of-the-mill is out of the question. If you want shallow stuff, you have to look further. Pele Caster are, again, as riot brushed as poetic, but at the same time their sound has become much harder and faster.
The band around singer and guitarist Stefan "Pele" Götzer already gets the message across in the first lines of the title song: These, our times are full of uncertainty – aimlessness is never an excuse for lived lethargy. In "Hulk", fear and panic are not allowed to run the show; instead, empathy and the will to be free should take precedence. "I'm not afraid," sings frontman Pele, in German. "Come on, no, I'm not afraid." The driving post-punk guitar suggests a doomsday mood, only to be taken into the future by the lyrics, bass and drums.
In the search for superheroes and in the desire neither to sink nor to leave castaways behind, the ambiguity of the song and EP title seems particularly charming and clever. A Hulk – that is not only a comic hero, but also a ship without propulsion.
With the single release "Alles eskaliert" Pele Caster clearly take a political stance and gives free rein to their anger at a world in which right-wing ideas and intolerance again take up a frightening amount of space. After all, don!t we all know the thoughts that the lyrics pose as questions in the dramatically melodic chorus all too well while consuming the news or reading social media? "What's going on? What happened?" Pele Caster are still explicitly irritated on the "Hulk" EP about the sick and senseless world - and wonder in shock: „Is there no one left to rebel?"
Already in the past Götzer and Co. have impressed with wonderful, poetic declarations of love (and occasionally – for the listeners – the odd all-beautiful heartbreak). With "Kapitänin" the Ruhrvalley band manages this again - the song is a very personal, but confident and honest thanks to its existence. The existence of a man who keeps the rudder in hand and smoothes every wave. The song is a compass to happiness, and belongs on this record like a buoy of optimism and love.
Pele Caster never wants to come across as superficial – thankfully that!s "no option". The eponymous track is downright jangly and demanding, and at the same time as casual as can be. The band doesn't want to have a template imposed on them, doesn't want to be an ordinary act. A promise they make to themselves with songs like "Keine Option". A promise they keep on the entire EP, by the way.
The lyrics of the relationship cracker of a song, „Unbequem", are almost a – literary – homage to W.B. Yeats' "Cloths of Heaven" when Pele sings: "I'm standing with my
feet on your dreams." Though, of course, standing up there isn't ideal – clearly, listening to this dancing is a better way out of an all-suffocating, uncomfortable partnership. But please not out of the Pele Caster world. In that world, dancing works excellently even in times like these which are still uncomfortable for so many people in the world. At home if needs be, but even better live, hopefully soon.