{"id":1520,"date":"2011-01-28T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T00:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2012-02-18T02:28:19","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T02:28:19","slug":"feature-katanga-01-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-katanga-01-11\/","title":{"rendered":"KATANGA – Children Of The Darkened Moon (January 2011) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

KATANGA – Children Of The Darkened Moon<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nJanuary 2011<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nFormed in 1998, Greifswald, Germany-based melodic gothic rock act Katanga issued inaugural EP Leben<\/em> in 1999 with the Batflight<\/em> EP arriving a year later. Debut full-length Darkchild<\/em> surfaced in 2006 through Rabazco Records. On November 18th, 2010, it was publicly announced that Katanga had inked a record contract with Massacre Records. \u201cOur old label Rabazco stopped working for us,\u201d reveals frontman Mario Banch, his words being translated by bassist Wilko Olken during the interview. \u201cWe learned that Atargatis \u2013 from the southern part of Germany \u2013 had signed with Massacre Records, so we contacted Massacre and asked if we could be signed also.\u201d<\/p>\n

Songwriting sessions for sophomore full-length studio effort Moonchild<\/em> began in earnest during mid-2007. \u201cMoonchild<\/em> developed just like any other album; we gathered ideas, worked with a computer, created songs and developed them as we go basically,\u201d Mario explains. \u201cFor the album, we took much more time than before because we decided that it had to be much better than the sound of Darkchild<\/em>. We wanted to take control of the finished product beforehand, and so we had to basically learn production techniques as well as computer-related techniques so that we had an album we could stand behind. The sound is warmer with a much broader spectrum, and tries to mix mythological ideas with ideas which tackle social criticism. That\u2019s why we re-recorded three songs from Darkchild<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to compare the sound of Katanga and its musical style as a mixture of well-known bands like The 69 Eyes and Depeche Mode,\u201d says the vocalist in reference to the gothic rock act\u2019s sound. \u201cMoonchild<\/em> is not that radical from Darkchild, though we seem to be using a bit more electronics than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will there be a five-year gap between Moonchild<\/em> and its successor, as was the case with Darkchild<\/em> and Moonchild<\/em>? \u201cWe hope not.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Mario mentioned, a lyrical hybrid of mythological ideas and social critiques are explored on Moonchild<\/em>. \u201c\u2018Bittermond\u2019 is a song about vampires, whereas \u2018Metropolis\u2019 deals with the idea developed in Fritz Lang\u2019s movie Metropolis,\u201d the German elaborates. \u201cWe are basically taking bits and pieces of mythology from here and there, and combining them into our lyrics. \u2018Marquis De Sade\u2019 \/ \u2018Gottlos\u2019 deals with the idea that love can be for sale, and \u2018Metropolis\u2019 deals with the hunger for money which pervades our societies. \u2018Schwarze Fl\u00fcgel\u2019 is a song about the idea that young people today lack perspective and the opportunity to develop into members of society, and \u2018Mondscheinfahrt\u2019 and \u2018Lemuria\u2019 basically handle the same topic. \u2018Moonchild\u2019 is a song about loneliness in society, while \u2018M\u00f6rder der Erinnerung\u2019 is a song about the abuse of alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe collaborate on the lyrics, but it\u2019s Mario who brings the ideas and has creative control of this process,\u201d notes Wilko.<\/p>\n

On the compositions \u2018I\u2019m Gonna Die For You\u2019, \u2018Bittermond\u2019 and \u2018Moonchild\u2019, Zeraphone \/ ex-Dreadful Shadows frontman Sven Friedrich supplies guest vocals. \u201cThe boss of our former label Rabazco used to be the bassist in the band that Sven Friedrich worked in before, and we\u2019ve got friends in common with him,\u201d the singer divulges. \u201cWe were referred to him and he decided to work with us. It was really quite nice to work with such a wonderful musician. Obviously, I\u2019m more of a middle-range singer while Doreen (backing vocals) hits the high notes, whereas Sven would be the one who has a really deep, resonating voice which blends in quite nicely. You can hear a side of Sven Friedrich you haven\u2019t heard in awhile because he sings a little more metal-like like he used to when working with Dreadful Shadows. He doesn\u2019t use that when working with Zeraphine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moonchild<\/em> was mastered by Vincent Sorg (who\u2019s worked with groups like Grave Digger, ASP, In Extremo and Tote Hosen), Peter \u2018Pluto\u2019 Neuber and Thorsten Wyk, with production duties being handled by Ron Thiele. \u201cWe developed a very relaxed way of working with Ron as a producer, because we had some ideas about how the songs were supposed to sound,\u201d Mario clarifies. \u201cWe pre-produced much of the material beforehand, handed in what we had to him, and he worked with it and put in his own ideas and decided what we liked and what we didn\u2019t like. We arrived at a product we could stand behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moonchild<\/em> was released on January 28th, 2011 through Massacre Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in January 2011<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KATANGA – Children Of The Darkened Moon Anthony Morgan January 2011 Formed in 1998, Greifswald, Germany-based melodic gothic rock act Katanga issued inaugural EP Leben in 1999 with the Batflight EP arriving a year later. Debut full-length Darkchild surfaced in 2006 through Rabazco Records. On November 18th, 2010, it was publicly announced that Katanga had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-katanga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4282,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions\/4282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}