01	Europa in Flammen						06:32
	02	Strangulation Alpha						06:21
	03	Our Reality Dissolves						06:55
	04	Trip to the Bleeding Planets (Unto the Light)						08:02
	05	Dead Like An Angel						04:54
	06	Echoworld Caravans						01:54
	07	Der Schlafmann Kommt						10:45
	08	Tantra-Nove-HyperCannibalism						06:42

"Dead like an Angel" was acoustified by KOROVA and Georg Hrauda at Tonstudio HOERNIX, Gettsdorf, in March 98
Exception: BonusTrack(8) at ZERO POINT Studio, Kramsach, in August 96
(Thanks for Bass&Guitar on this Recording to Michael Kroll & Georg Razesberger)
extensive Preproductions at FLEISCHORGEL LABS, Vols
Lyrics & Music By ChN except 4a/ Music by ChN & MN, 7.Music by KOROVA and 1.Lyrics by Christian Clementi

There's no SOLUTION, there's no SALVATION!!!


Korova
Origin: Austria
Status: (renamed)
Last Update: February 20, 2003


Formed in 1990 in Austria, Korova is one of those bands that truly defies any real description, the sort of band that begs to be referred to as "avant-garde". The band debuted in 1995 with A Kiss In The Charnel Fields (not reviewed here, but reportedly a bit disjointed), but it's Dead Like An Angel that's the real find here. A wide variety of disparate styles are weaved together, with death/black influences abounding, and vocal styles ranging from vicious black shrieking to operatic female tones to Arcturus-style post-black theatrical voices. As with other unconventional bands, this is not an easy listen and not everything works, but nevertheless this is an outstanding album, and highly recommended to left-field metallists.

Following the release of Dead Like An Angel, mainman Christof Niederwieser and drummer Moritz Neuner split from the other members to form a new band (in interviews, Niederwieser basically stated that Korova had to be destroyed). That band is, appropriately enough, known as Korovakill, who have released a similarly eclectic album Waterhells and who will be featured on this site sometime in the future.


Martina Hornbacher vocals (See also Dreams Of Sanity, Alas)
Christof Niederweiser vocals/guitars/keyboards
Herwig Huber guitars
Florian Oberlechner bass
Susanne Eckbauer keyboards
Moritz Neuner drums

former members:
George Razerberger guitars
Michael Kroll bass



A Kiss In The Charnel Fields - 1995 Napalm

Christof Niederweiser
George Razerberger
Michael Kroll
Moritz Neuner

Intro: Der Weltenbrand / Das Kreuz Und Der Metzenapfel
After The Fruits Of Ephemeral Pulchritude
Lachrydeus Mittelgard (Slahan Fontagr Inn Aw I)
Entlebt In Tristem Morgenblut
Intro: Im Teich Erlischt Ein B Chlein
Awakening From Perpetual Contemplation (Yellow Mahogany Tomb. I)
Latin Dreams In Turpentine
Nordsciltim - In The Filth Where All Cull Perambulates Pain
Salomeh, Des Teufels Braut
A Kiss In The Charnel Fields

Dead Like An Angel - 1999 Napalm

Martina Hornbacher
Christof Niederweiser
Herwig Huber
Florian Oberlechner
Susanne Eckbauer
Moritz Neuner

Europa In Flammen
Strangulation Alpha
Our Reality Dissolves
Trip To The Bleeding Planets (Unto The Light)
Dead Like An Angel
Echoworld Caravans
Der Schlafmann Kommt
Tantra-Nove-HyperCannibalism


Korova / Dead Like an Angel (1998)

This CD is hard to place - it is certainly avant-garde, though it does not fall cleanly into gothic, death or black metal, though it has elements of all of these, and is quite atmospheric in places as well. Overall it is quite melodic and theatrical, especially the vox, often creepy, and contains a lot of fast and intricate passages with odd complex melodies, rhythms and harmonies. At times it could be a soundtrack for a horror movie (in fact, the first song is just that, for Fritz Protivinsky's B-Movie "Panzerzombie IV") - fast, complex and harsh with huge, swirling, sinister electronic keys, and odd vocal arrangements using death vox, Garm-style theatrical vox, and chick vox. At other times it is very melodic with catchy riffs and groove with a mix of black, theatrical and chick vox and killer drumming, though even here the arrangements still tend to be complex and intricate, even occasionally chaotic. At times it is smooth and gothic with really nice clean male and soaring chick vox along with beautiful atmospheric keys and strings. Perhaps the closest CD that comes to mind is Solefald / Neonism, though Neonism is more black metalish overall than DLAA. Yet they are similar because both are masterful at weaving together many typically disparate styles of music into a recognizable unity, and doing with surprisingly complex and varied arrangements. The musical journey that Korova takes us on in this CD is simply fascinating, even mesmerizing at times, and is highly recommended for fans of dark avant-garde metal.

The production is very good, very full and heavy, though can be bright at times, especially the cymbal work and blast beat drumming - I suspect this was intentional, and makes for a powerful and involving presentation throughout.

December 2000 - 9/10



Band: KOROVA
Country of origin: Austria
Style: cyber barocco metal
Questions by: Kai Mathias Stalhammar
Answers supplied by: Christof Niederwieser (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings, Christopher! First of all, why such a strange name for a BM band? I'm wondering if you know that "korova" means "cow" in Russian:

- Greetings Kai! A big hello to all our Russian Brothers! Sometimes we are supersonic, distorted and heavy, sometimes even malignant and bizarre, but all in all we are no BM band. Therefore we didn't see any problems in choosing the name KOROVA, which is the holy golden Cow, the Symbol for divine and lucid Enlightment, for the Great Mother All, for the Unification of God and his Angels with Satan and his Demons.

Conceive that I've never heard anything in regards to KOROVA - what would you tell me then, so I could fancy what your band is all about:? Also, a little "history lesson" won't harm anything, I believe:

- KOROVA's first concert took place in November 1991. In December 1993 Moritz Neuner joined us on drums and from that day he and myself evolved KOROVA to what it is today. The first result was our debut album "A Kiss In The Charnel Fields", released on Napalm Records in Spring 1995, which holds a complexe style - mixture somewhere between progressive black / deathmetalfields, gothic, psychedelic, minnesong and jazzy menticidewaves. That's our boring history. (Rest Question 4)

Do you think that such definition as "cyber barocco metal" fits your music and describes it really well?

- We used "Northgoatified Cyber-Baroque" to define our style in early 1994 before we signed at Napalm and meant it more as a Persiflage on all those eclectic blackmetal bands inventing tons of new terms for their "innovative sound". Somehow the press and mailorders continued to use variations of this strange definition even nowadays, although other terms like "avantgarde" or "future metal" maybe would fit as well or even better to communicate a blurred imagination of our doing to the listeners within one pithy slogan. But all this has more to do with advertizing than with our music, which everybody perceives in a different way, comparing it to different listening experiences, declaring it under different categories, just like everybody has a different idea in mind even about such simple terms like "chair" or "car". So maybe you understand that we personally don't care at all about definitions and leave this hard work to those who get paid for it - the marketing experts and the journalists (thus it's your turn now, Kai!).

What caused such a long period of silence between "A Kiss In The Charnel Fields" and "Dead Like An Angel" CDs?

- The long period of silence after the release of "A Kiss In The Charnel Fields" in 1995 was filled by collecting experiences with new electronical music technology and doing expressionistic and phantastic experiments on our instruments beyond all limits of the metal-scemes until the end of 1996. Then Herwig joined us on guitar and we started the work for our second album "Echowelt / Echoworld", because we thought the time was ripe for something totally new. In these days we thought such an Impulse would be necessary before doing the second KOROVA album. We combined the alienated science-fiction-elements from our elektro-experiences with extremest metal-instrumentation to create the next step in the evolution of heavy music for the next millenium. Unfortunately Napalm Records denied to do the production for this album, because they didn't see any possibility to find customers for this peculiar stuff. So we did spent about half a year on trying to find another company to release "Echoworld" without any success until also Michael, our bass-player, left us in Summer 1997. I moved to Italy because of my University-studies, listened to lots of popmusic and wrote the concept and four songs for the "Dead Like An Angel" album there, steering into a much catchier and melodic direction, which we recorded in January 1998. Napalm then immediately broke "the long silence" around KOROVA by offering us a very good contract and just three months later "Dead Like An Angel" was produced and released with two songs from the "Echoworld" album and one song done for another project embedded within the frame of five new pieces. That's the boring story of the long loud silence between our debut album and our second album. Maybe our first second album from 1997 will be released after our third album in the Year 2000...

Are you pleased with they way "Dead Like An Angel" sounds? Personally, I'm not. In spite of the fact that Studio Hoernix appears as quite famous place, and despite the outstanding skills possessed by the ones involved in KOROVA, the CD seems to suck when it comes to the producer-ship:

- We just had three weeks to get ourselves prepared for the recordings, because my holidays from university in Italy and also the free days in HOERNIX were limited. The band and Martina had to start from zero with the new songs and really did great and optimal work within this short and stressful time. It's really very rare in the Metal-Scene to find people as reliable, professional and flexible as those involved in "Dead Like An Angel". So it was possible to do the studio-sessions just within four days and one day mixing. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to record this CD because of our time-tables, neither to speak of riskfully testing other studios than the house-studio of our record company. If you consider that the sound of the album is pretty okay, although I have to admit that it can be horrible on some Hi-Fi-Sets. For our next album "Waterhells" we will have more Time and more Money to enter a better Studio specialized in metalsound. Probably it will include a new version of "Strangulation Alpha" as bonus-track, because especially this song really wasn't produced that well.

Any comments on the lyrics of yours:? For example, what "Europa In Flammen" tells about?

- The lyrics of "Europa In Flammen" are outstanding from the concept of the overall album and just serve to embedden pure martial aggression into music. "Europe In Flames" - nothing more to say... The rest of the lyrical background is about our Selfdisintegration-Daymares and flaming Ride into Benightment, about the Demon-Voice from the Storms of a trillion myriad Faces staring. Exausting Ambivalences spin the deathful Net of no Return. There's no Solution, there's no Salvation. There's no Solution besides Self-Dissolution, Decay and final Melting into the eternal Kiss of the pantheistic Goddess of Light, the blind Will, the physical Great United Energy, into our Mother All. Consciously or not, but Self-Dissolution is the Major-Motivation of every human activity. If you watch TV or your children, do any kind of fulfilling work, put yourself under the leadership of an Aim, a Dogma, another person or a movement, fall in love and drown in sexual volcanos or so on or get a psychotic brainhit, it's all the same principle. It's all about leaving the bitter and isolated prisons of our monadistic personalities and forget ourselves into something bigger. "Strangulation Alpha" contributes the misanthropic and hopeless point of view about this basic concept. It is spilling Nausea on the whole false Prophets of Belief, Science, Consumption and Fashion, whom we follow our whole lifetimes since millions of years now without any possibility to escape from this grinding wheels of the mankind-machine. One mania follows the other, one cheap trick to stiff entertainment into our suffocating throats follows the next garish "little suicide". Desires and their fullfillment are laid into our heads by the marketing-kings. They colour the immense and panic Nights, that perpetually surround us, with gaudy illusions - and we swallow and swallow until we sleep: Contrarily the religious and positive, but also very nostalgic Reception-Possibility leading to the concept of our forthcoming album "Katalypse2025" - I don't want to reveal too much - is propagandized in
"Our Reality Dissolves". In this scenario all Predictions and Myths about Apocalypse, Rebirth, Beyond, Salvation, Damnation, any Points of View, will be fulfilled in the Final Excessive Collective Selfdissolution of the Year 2025, when the Great Totalfragmentation of all human Existence into an overwhelming Menplasm-Primesea leads to Formation into a thin Senseskin-Liquid, that flows around the whole Earthball and pulsates as Biotech-Gaia, the allseeing Worldplanet-Eyeapple. Receiving all Waves, Atoms, Stimuli, Things and Movements all around in all Directions in all Scales and Zooms of Time and Space together at the same Time all we single Cells wane into the Great Human Bodiness and watch enthralled all Appearances, Perception-Konstrukts, the World's former Imaginations & Objects fracturing into the shining Kaleidoscope-Play of its Energy-Components and omnidimensional Mirrorfaces of the eternal divine Laughter. "Dead Like An Angel" are the silent Observators, the brave new androgynous Swans of the next Millenium, who watch this all with lucid supersensitive Eyes. Passively and paralyzedly staring they can't react anymore to what their brandnew-evolved Perception-Abilities catapult into their Senses. Several thousand years ago people weren't able to differ the colour Bluebfrom grey or black. It didn't exist in their language and to their eyes. Now the next step of developement waits in its cradle, and it's first pioneers have to drag the heavy burden, the Agony of the whole Universe, with crackling nerves and soaring heads full of others desperate thoughts, deriving from first little Sensequakes and telephatic Amalgamations with the Environment, on their consoling Shoulders. Another dimension of this song concerns the old topic about the decision for freedom and therefore against frontiers and bindings. For freedom you have to pay the price of Chaos, Confusion and Solitude, while frontiers and bindings also have the positive aspect of being a sheltering Order and Orientation in the fluctuating Storms of our spontaneous Urges. With the "Katalypse2025" - Story the progressive Way of Self-Dissolution is demonstrated, but there is also the contrary second possibility of returning into the sweet Paradise of the prenatal Mother-Womb by Means of Regression into the archaic egocentric World of a Child. A Child in Wish to sleep forever: The Child decoyed back home into the warm Wool-Funeralwhirls by the Sleepman in the phantasmagoric Finale of "Der Schlafmann Kommt" (And Sleepman Comes), our Hymn to Sleep, Introspection and finally Death. You see, the albumtitle could have been any of the songtitles, because all Tunes just describe the same basic Idea under a different perspective. It's a pity that there is too little space to give you sufficient and deeper Explanations about the thoughts behind, but maybe you can imagine a bit more now. Feel free to think your own worlds to our symbols in the end, okay, for everything I told you now is just one moment out of many possible interpretations. Memories on memories on memories, words on words on words on words: that's the Essence of Trip to the bleeding Planets (Unto the Light).

As far as I know, you also sing in ANGIZIA:

- We already finished the Recordings for "Das Schachbrett Des Trommelbuben Zacharias" in February 1999 with rather radical line-up changes: Ask Engelke for more information. All in all the result has come out pretty interesting, because Engelke is doing the major part of male vocals now himself with great theatralic expression. My vocals are a bit reduced therefore compared to "Das Tagebuch:". Also Moritz and Florian of KOROVA on drums and accordion and Eviga of DORNENREICH appear on this record .

Are you going to continue working with Engelke and co.? By the way, I was truly impressed and shocked in the same time, when I discovered that there're few verses on "Das Tagebuch:" CD sung in Russian!!!

- I hope you weren't too shocked because of the bad pronounciation and grammar when hearing the Russian Stanzas, because Engelke is a big fan of Russland and has placed all bigger concepts of the ANGIZIA albums in this scenery. It's a tribute to your impressing country and culture. You should contact him for an interview!!

Are you associating with anyone within Austrian BM scene besides ANGIZIA? Are you familiar with the band called TRIFIXION? Their works seem to be rather close to yours, also being very vanguard:

- The debut album of TRIFIXION was really outstanding, but as far as I am informed he has stopped making music years ago. We are in contact with DREAMS OF SANITY and DORNENREICH from our Hometown, with P.K. and Lucia of ABIGOR and GRABESMOND, Elisabeth of DAAGARD, who has helped us with live vocals, sometimes with the sick boys of BELPHEGOR and many others. I am in a elektro-trip-hop-band with Renaud / ELEND here in Innsbruck and Moritz is playing drums for EVENFALL now. Somehow everybody knows everybody in our little Austrian scene and we have great solidarity and support among each other.

What roused you to invite Martina Hornbacher as a female singer? Did you know her personally before, or decided to invite her being charmed by her voice after listening to THERION's "Vovin" and "Komodia" by DREAMS OF SANITY:?

- There was friendship between DREAMS OF SANITY and KOROVA since we started to organize bigger concerts together here in Tyrol in early 1994. After Martina left them it was no question for us to ask her if she could do the female vocals on "Dead Like An Angel", because there isn't anybody better for this job in our hometown and we also come out well on personal level. It really was a pleasure to work with her, because her creativity and sensitivity has made absolutely the best out of our songs with her cool lines. It is very uncertain though that she will also sing on our next album, because she has got certain contractual duties with her other bands, which forbid her outer activities. Anyway, what she is working out at the moment will surely be one of the most bewiching surprises on the metal sector in the nearer future...!

Can you describe your own personality in few words? In short, who is Christopher Niederwieser?

- Christof Niederwieser of KOROVA is the Wind of a Trillion Myriad Voices.

What is your attitude to the animal world and fauna in the whole? Do you stand for total urbanization or "Greenpeace" activities are something more close to your innerworld? Is homo sapiens a superior creature, or a greatest Nature's failure?

- Biotech Gaia EARTH needs both - the constructing Order of the Architects and the flickering Life of Nature to grant the human Will a Maximum of Freedom. Of course the balance between both is always a bit disturbed. And you Russians should know even better than we rich assholes here in Middle-Europe, how disturbed the balance is at the moment concerning the U.S.A.-reigned World Economy System, the clearest mirror of the world's actual status quo in the middle of a big toilet. Organizations like Greenpeace (at least in theory) or even public Institutes (at least here in Austria) are important to preserve the rights of Nature's silent voice against the Robot-Fist of the Capital.

Do you know anything regarding Russia? I hope there's at least a couple of bands coming from here you've heard already:?

- I know the splendid descriptions of the Russian Spirit by the great books of Dostojewski, one of my most favourite writers, and Evgeniy "Nabahm", one of my favourite Russian Potz-Friends. He and Alexej have moved to Germany some years ago before getting 18 years old to escape from the perverse Military-Service-System and are now playing drums and bass in my Side-Band SHINING OF KLIFFOTH. Sometimes I think I am infiltrated by Russian Spys...

Thanks for answering this one: Would you like to say or wish anything?

- Look out for the KILLER OF 1999 - 6661: our third album "Waterhells" in the Sommerhells of 1999:





Back to "Interviews"
Korovakill

(June 2001)
Represented by Christof Niederwieser
Interviewed by AJ Blisten

Korovakill is a cool name for a band. And it's not a word game only, because there is an idea behind why this Austrian band took this name. Christof Niederwieser has been a Korovakiller since 1991, which means that the band has reason to celebrate this year. They have sort of already done that by giving the metal people a great piece of metal art by putting out "Waterhells" earlier this year on Red Stream. But, let's go back to the name - Korovakill. Niederwieser explains:

- The term Korova stands for all the herd rubbish that is euphemized with the word "Social". Korova reigns everywhere, where people pack together in collective masses to substitute their very own individuality with a fabricated and manipulated common identity. "Together we are strong!", says the stupid herd. Individuality, originality and out-of-norm is like a red cloth to the bulls of Korova.
- That's why we had to create Korovakill, the mighty beast of prey, the lion king and golden dragon in the war against the cruel collectives of the ruminant state, against the modern social society of mass industries, that smothers all forms of life into the norms of mechanical numbers and products. Korovakill is the fountain of fire on burning stables. It's like Phoenix vomiting on his ashes:

Niederwieser has just explained the bands philosophy and let's just say enough is enough and talk about what this interview was supposed to be about, namely the music, which seems to have become a successful mix of black metal and gothic rock:

- Words are just illusions of worlds, Niederwieser says philosophically.
- I'm glad that's not me, but the press to violate our music into hollow prisons of descriptions, he continues.
- Our promotor likes to call it "A trip into New Metal". Some of the reviews I've read use terms like "Epic Avantgarde" og "Death Pop". We can live with everything, he concludes and I get the impression that the Austrian metal genius doesn't care about these things at all:
And yes, I really think this man is a genius. "Waterhells" is great piece of work and after 10 years in the business as Korova and two previous albums, "A Kiss In The Charnel Fields" ('95) and "Dead Like An Angel" ('98) through the domestic label Napalm, the band died:

- In spring 2000 we killed Korova and split up. After some months as "dead" the necromanters of Red Stream came into the picture to revitalize some parts of us under the new banner, Korovakill. Actually it's not a real band anymore, since we don't do regular rehearsals:
- The last time we met in the rehearsal room was in October 2000 before the studio sessions for "Waterhells". Korovakill is no band, but a flexible cluster of three individuals, Niederwieser says.

One of them is a female singer. She have contributed on the album with her song on most of the songs, but it's not operatic like we've used to hear on releases from metal bands that have incorporated this musical dimension in their music. The female contribution in Korovakill has a more adventurous approach, which makes the atmosphere in the songs like something taken out of a fairytale:

- The song of the bleeding mermaids was born through the voice of Laura Angelmayer, Niederweiser says.
- She surprised us totally with her cool and spontaneous ideas, and we haven't met any female singer like her before. I met her the first time when I was wandering through the forests in the mountains near my house. Under my walk I heard this siren voice singing out from nowhere. I ran towards the direction of this wonderful song and came to a place where a little Brooklet ripples through a little pond. Laura was sitting there with a book and an apple in her hands, singing and reading. Just one day later her vocal parts for "Waterhells" were recorded in the home studio of Renaud (Tschirner). I still can't believe the great luck we had, says Niewieder before he goes into long explanation about the "Waterhells" idea and philosophical aspects around the albums title:

- "Waterhells" is the story about the eternal cycle of the great sea. The great sea is the total sum of all atoms, Waves, things, movements and stimuli in all scales and zooms of all time, places and ages all around in all directions together in one entity, the world of worlds, he explains.
- The great sea is where all comes from and where all will end. Others call it Tao, Brahman, Apeiron, Hyle, Chaos, Ain Sop Aur, Substance, Central Monad, World Of Will, Alpha & Omega or Grand Inified Energy. There are a myriad of names for it.
It will take to much space to let him tell all about the conceptual idea and story of what "Waterhells" is all about, but the basic idea and storyline is about a man drifting aimlessly at sea before he's drawn to the bottom to a strange world with a scull palace where a drop of his blood gives life to marble statues. He flees from this strange world and reaches the heart of the sun and all the water around him vanishes. It's a lot more to it and it really is a fascinating fairytale:

- "Waterhells" is about transforming water into fire, Niederwieser says.
- It's about activating the hidden worlds of the great sea into the visible world. The last chord of the last song is a cluster of all 12 half-tones, each one standing for one of the 12 songs on the album. So the whole album is united and become one in the end.

There must be a very vivid and creative mind behind the idea and it's always intriguing to hear about a conceptual idea like this. There are lots of streams in the great sea and maybe Red Stream is one of them. Red Stream belong to the real world and a good wave for Korovakill to ride on:

- Red Stream is a great label for us, Niederweiser confirms.
- They are very reliable and occupied with us as a band. They are also doing great propaganda for Korovakill. Red Stream is not a big label, but an honest one, and that counts much more than high sales or getting super star status. We don't need to compromise. That's very important to us.
- As far as live activities goes there aren't planned any for the near future, so we haven't even talked about touring support. Moritz (Neuner) is doing so many studio and live jobs with other bands at the moment, so my guess would be that we had to go on tour without him as our drummer due to his busy schedule. He's just spent the last three months touring with Dornenreich and he's doing many live jobs for Darkwell and Angry Angels beside studio work for Abigor. That's why we have decided to continue without a live line-up.

It would be more or less correct to say that the Korovakill compositions are leaning towards the blackotic (black metal & gothic) metal genre. But that doesn't mean that all members of the band listen to these particular musical styles:

- Well, I am not listening very much to music at all, Niederweiser states.
- When you have a radio in you head you don't need CD's and tapes anymore. Renaud is a music lunatic with a huge collection of different sounds ranging from jazz and classical to electronics, rock and extreme metal. Mortiz prefers the heavy way of music, especially black metal and gothic:

In closing, Mr. Niederweider; How important is it for you as a band to "invent" and express new musical ideas and song structures?

- Actually, it's isn't important at all. We don't care too much about the fashions and the flavors of the week. When we write our music we just listen to our inner voices and catch the words and tones and all those pictures flowing out from deep inside there: If somebody thinks that the result expresses new musical ideas it's ok by us, but that isn't actually something we're aiming at. We have a responsibility for the pictures we perceive. And then we have to dress them up in sounds and lyrics as good as possible. All the rest doesn't matter at all. It's not important: