The German rock band Coma Beach is undoubtedly one of my favourite rock acts to listen to. Today, I want to share my reflections on their latest EP, Passion/Bliss. This music has a unique ability to transform your feelings of rage, chaos, pain, and isolation into a new perspective. Let’s explore this further to uncover more insights.

1 of 5

The alternative/rock five-track EP follows the story of an antihero facing the turbulence of life and pretty much loses his mind entirely. Formed by singer B. Kafka, guitarist Captain A. Fear,  drummer M. Lecter, with  bassist U. Terror and rhythm guitarist M. Blunt, Coma Beach hails from Würzburg, Germany, and their sound is very dark and daring.

Tracklist:

1. A Madman’s Dream – Single Version
2. Mind Descending – Single Version
3. Absurd – Radio Edit
4. I Won’t Listen – Original Version – Radio Edit
5. Jesus’ Tears – Radio Edit

Their previous release was actually back in 1995, when the tracks on the EP were originally released in an album titled “The Scapegoat’s Agony. Organized and assembled together in the new EP, the songs carry a new flavour of tenebrosity and an advanced sound featuring vocal growls by B. Kafka and impeccable guitar strikes of Captain A. Fear.

“The album title is an allusion to the play “Waiting for Godot” by Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett,” shared the band. “And points towards the – for the most part – painful and excruciating emotional odyssey of the unnamed antihero.”

You follow the story of said antihero throughout the first track, “A Madman’s Dream” as he descends into madness in a full sound of insane drumming and oscillating vocals that jump from left to right and vice versa, emulating the mad mind of our antihero. As you listen throughout the EP, you can almost feel like you, yourself, are losing your mind too.

“Absurd” takes you on a journey of death and agony, calling life “absurd” and ridiculous, while “I Won’t Listen” carries the title effortlessly to paint the perfect picture of the antihero completely losing sense of reality from his surroundings. A guitar solo ensues in the middle of the track that transitions the song from a slow agonizing journey into an upbeat vibe that picks up the pace till the end of the track.

Overall, the EP is solid rock music that features lyrical genius by the band, which is satirical and sarcastic, and might have you chuckling in the midst from the dark humour that it carries. With influences of Sex Pistols, Ramones, Hüsker Dü, Joy  Division, The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain to Guns N’ Roses seeping its way into the music, the EP is without a doubt a guilty pleasure for rock enthusiasts.

The band took a bold decision putting this track as the first one, considering how it’s the climax of the concept album that was originally released in the 90s. The hard hitting rhythm section matches so well the angsty and overdriven vocals. The guitars however, sound on the clean-ish for most of the song, except when the pace (intentionally) changes for the hooks. Overall, you can tell that the band are master songwriters by how well they change the timing of the drums and the vocal style while still maintaining the emotion and vibe of the song.

Although cut a little shorter than the album version, this track is still my favourite release from the band’s entire repertoire. The drums are hard-hitting, the bass is present and strong, the guitars are relentless, and most importantly, the vocals are distorted and overdriven for the entire song’s duration. It may be the song that will make you wanna push someone and start a mosh pit. 

Now if it wasn’t for some of the nasal qualities and the unique bass tone, I would’ve thought that my music player had shuffled to a different artist. This song is a guitar ballad that somehow still sounds like textbook punk rock. Its most amazing quality is the vocalist’s ability to sound broken and then determined in the exact same sentence, matching the album’s nameless antihero. I promise you this is unlike any other punk song you’ve heard before and it’ll blow your mind away. 

Another exemplary Punk Song, but this time it sounds like a time warp to the 70s. The vocals are balanced between clean chesty parts and more raspy ones, and there are some melodic guitar lines intertwined with the percussive ones. It doesn’t matter if you’re a punk or a metalhead (like myself) because there’s an impeccable rhythm section on this song that will get you hyped and moving. A beautiful closer to an EP that gives listeners a peak to the full experience of the band’s magnum opus of a record, The Scapegoat’s Agony.

This hardcore outfit that blurs the lines between punk, alternative rock, and nu metal hails from the town of Würzburg, Germany. A 5-piece band, the group’s lyrics usually carry over nihilistic topics like their perceived lack of meaning to anything, a satirical approach to the absurdities of the human condition, tragic situations between their different characters or within the character’s oneself, and every now and then, adopting Schopenhauer’s system of radical metaphysical pessimism. Things like that. 

Spearheaded by B. Kafka’s “Keith Flintian”, howled, short vocal utterances, to which a big amount of the Extreme Masochist’s aggressive edge is indebted, and his vast knowledge of literature, the song ends up with depth to its words that is met with the sharp knife’s edge of the riff-centered, distortion-heavy, guitar-based arrangement. The heaviness of Coma Beach’s music makes it usually cacophonous, corrosive, hard-to-stand, and other terms that us -punk heads- really fall for.

Come Beach is a band whose music comes loaded with all the poignancy of well-read poets, and all the lunacy of raging hooligans, and it is in this particular duality that they carve out a name for themselves as one of the more noteworthy and memorable hardcore bands out there. ‘Extreme Machosist’ expands on this dual nature of their music and sound, and adds one more hefty single to their album.

Coma Beach opened Another Song with an upbeat groovy sound and a rocking extended solo, cementing their rock influences and raw sound. It has a powerful driving groove with a unified fluid melodic stream that pushes the song’s dynamics forward, alongside the raw aggressive vocal delivery that throws an extra layer of catchy attitude. Coma Beach incredibly maintained their relentless fast pace and kept on building on it with subtle twists and turns, keeping the beat always going while the listeners were hooked and entertained. Their diverse influences were cleverly fused and crafted into a rocking sound with a punkish drive and attitude in a unique cross-over that was well-executed. 

1 of 4

Another Song is a solid tune with a highly dynamic structure and interesting shifts by Coma Beach. They showed their well-knowledge of their sound and direction and their bold character. I’ll be looking forward to more from Coma Beach, keep on rocking guys. Cheers! 

Coma Beach‘s raw sound and punk-ish attitude take the listeners by storm in Nothing Right. They have an intense pace with fast-flowing riffs and aggressive, energy-boosting vocals that both blast the song’s dynamic structure to the roof, alongside the hard-hitting bass and pounding drums that send the listeners off their seats headbanging. Nothing Right is an extremely dynamic tune with a structure that only pushes forward toward a bigger and faster sound, reflecting Coma Beach‘s heavy influences and bold character and giving us a taste of their energy, I believe this song will drive the audience crazy when played live.

Nothing Right shows Coma Beach‘s writing skills and their well-knowledge of their sound and direction. They managed to create a heavy tune through all its aspects from writing to recording and production, it gives a strong raw, old-school vibes that powerfully hit the listeners and easily get them hooked and engaged. Looking forward to more from Coma Beach, keep on rocking. Cheers!

Based in Würzburg, Germany, Jesus’ Tears is the 7th cut-off of Coma Beach’s full-length release, The Scapegoat’s Agony, and it is a clear example of what the band is all about. The most unforgettable thing about Jesus’ Tears is maybe the vocals, growly and gritty, courtesy of Coma Beach frontman B. Kafka. The drums are immediately catchy and organic. Hard-hitting, and fast-paced, they provide a solid, pounding backbeat to the scratchy and characterful rhythm guitars from Captain A. Fear. 

The intensely modulated lead guitar performance from M. Blunt features an iconic sound to the genre with its extreme flagging effect. High on treble, and low on everything else, they highlight The Scapegoat’s Agony distinctive sonic character with ease. 

Jesus’ Tears is an intense piece of rock music with traumatizing topics to its core and lyrics. The music is just as polarizing and challenging, but if you have it in you to enjoy noise rock, then Coma Beach will be right down your alley.

Coma Beach is a hardcore rock band from Würzburg, Germany, and naming Sex Pistols, The Cure, and Joy Division among their list of influences should give you a clear indication to the punk direction of the band’s sound, that never veers away from a melodic, tangible core, making their music challenging, rocking, and very compelling little pieces of pure rock. 

The themes of the band’s music, lyrics, and imagery are, in their own words, shock, chaos, pain, rage, and isolation… a deadly recipe for sure. The band’s topics are often existential, disturbingly so, but the tightness of the music, and the ultra-unique vocals from frontman B. Kafka make the music inviting and intriguing. The songs basically follow a simple, working formula; come up with a couple of riffs, add lyrics, a whiff of tight drums, a hint of meaty bass, and voilà, and it works most of the time. The band’s music is certainly far from being this simple, often uses philosophical imageries, alludes to classic literature from the bleak libraries of Samuel Beckett and Douglas Adams, creating with them lyrical themes that are deep and thought-provoking, while maintaining an entirely bleak outlook.

The rhythm guitars from M. Blunt are consistently thick and harsh with distortion, the riffs tend to be rocking power chords for most of the time, and with bass lines that basically follow these chords in a pure punk fashion, the drums are also mostly simplistic, but with a heavy hand and a Hail Mary attitude, they manage to push a massive amount of air and fill the mix quite confidently, while all of this simplicity is adorned by Captain A. Fear’s noisy, intimidating, shredded solos, and of course, Kafka’s vocal delivery. An unforgettable husky growl is Kafka’s vocal timbre, adding a unique spin on the tight sound, giving it an edge of unpredictable danger. The vocals easily called to my mind those of the late Keith Flint of Prodigy.

The Scapegoat’s Agony is a demanding listen by all accounts, but for lovers of punk and hardcore, then this experience will be a breeze… figuratively. The consistently tight and coherent mixes, with their pronounced scooped-mids sound are invigorating, the performances across the board are juicy and rich, and the sound of the band, courtesy of literary lyrics, unique vocals, and hazardous solo tones all make The Scapegoat’s Agony an extremely promising debut.