Moral Bombing released Chrysopoeia on August 13, 2026 through Gizzmoix Records, Spleencore Records and Villus Records, with the whole record built on a very small budget and a lot of trust between people who already knew each other well. Simon Amrhein recorded it, Dustin at Weicht Productions mixed it, and 1408 handled the mastering. Dustin is a childhood friend of Niklas and previously played with Niklas and Ole in Iserlohn, while Simon is a close friend of the band and someone deeply involved in recording around their local scene.
The exact costs are staying private, but the band make it clear that the record could happen this way because much of the work came through those personal connections. They describe 1408 as one of the pieces holding the German heavy music community together, a name that keeps showing up in the credits of recent hardcore and metal releases.
That DIY energy sits in the double-single video joining โdreamscapesโ and โlilac heavens,โ which also carries the title โI Hear They Still Pray For Me.โ Working with Katharina Schffr, credited as @katharina_schffr, six people hauled half of Moral Bombingโs rehearsal room into the woods, shot the first half during the day and kept going after dark.
The concept came together through a long first meeting where, as the band put it, they basically spent the time โyappingโ until they realised they were seeing the same thing. Her darker visual style fitted what they had in mind, and the low-budget shoot became another extension of how Chrysopoeia was made in the first place: friends, limited resources and a lot of hands-on work.
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The record itself gave me a rush I hadnโt had in a while. The first album I remember doing something similar was Meleehโs Heartland back in 2007, one I returned to hundreds of times.
Moral Bombing are harsher and much more brutal, but thereโs something in those huge, open riffs that hits the same nerve, full of lift, scale and this almost overwhelming sense of release. Then the furious vocals come tearing through it. Two tracks in, you feel dragged, rolled over and pretty much flattened, with the tempo going completely off the rails and those metallic riffs cutting through like blades. Somehow, you still want more.
Then the vocals come crashing through it. Two songs in and you feel like youโve been dragged across the floor, rolled over and kicked around a bit, yet somehow you still want another round. The pace gets ridiculous, the metallic cuts come down like blades, and the whole thing just keeps piling on weight. Itโs seriously heavy.
The title names the alchemical production of gold.
For Bella, that idea grew out of several years spent reading Jung while dealing with her own mental health and looking at alchemy, religious symbols and the Christian background she had already brought into earlier Moral Bombing lyrics.
Bella said, “I’ve been deep diving into Jungian psychology for the past few years as I’ve been on my own healing journey with mental health. Through his work it was unavoidable to get into the world of Alchemy, religious symbols and my own relationship with it. I’ve felt that the principles of Alchemy paint well-fitting pictures for the inner world of the human psyche. My Christian upbringing and thoughts about shadow and light have been part of my songwriting in our previous stuff. Filtering through pain and dirt and achieving ‘Chrysopoeia’ is what this album is about. It’s about hope, love and loss. You have to keep digging for your inner gold. It’s a painful journey to meet your shadow but it’s also the only way through. We can’t keep running away from it.”
The teaser reversed the album title on screen. Moral Bombing wanted to leave some room for mystery and play at a point when social feeds keep pushing artists towards immediate, attention-led promotion.
“In the age of in-your-face attention stealing social media self promotion slop we want to bring back some mysticism. We value aesthetics and artistry infinitely higher than any algorithmically optimised ‘content’. Be creative and have some fun with it.”
“Lilac heavens” contains the line “swallowing man-made potions, the elixir of life”. “Dreamscapes” brings in “a body without organs”, then keeps repeating the devil near the end until the phrase is worn down. They connect the phrase to identity loss, transformation, ego-death and the point where ascension can tip into dissociation.
“It’s a fine line between ascension and dissociation of the Self. The body without organs as a concept helps visualize the loss of identity, the need for transformation and ego-death. There is no outside transformation without it happening on the inside first. Some of us are into schizoanalysis, as it critiques classical psychoanalysis. It’s trippy stuff haha.”
Bella went further into metaphor and abstraction on “Chrysopoeia“, leaving the emotions open enough for listeners to connect them to their own lives. Bella said, “As much as I like to get personal with the lyrics, I want everyone to be able to relate to it.
These emotions I’m writing about are very universal and deeply human. With this album I’ve tried to get more metaphorical and abstract with it.”
The band began in 2017 as a four-piece deathgrind and powerviolence band with no fixed long-term plan. Rehearsals meant a lot of hanging around and, by their own memory, a lot of beer. The line-up and the music changed as they got older.
They still call themselves “a bunch of hc/emo kids”. “Vicious Cycle” was fast and direct. By “Erase Your Flesh” in 2023, the songs were getting longer, leaving more room for development and moving towards lyrics that told stories.
Since the end of the pandemic, “Chrysopoeia” is their fourth release. They started writing it in 2024 and recorded it in 2025 while continuing to tour and putting out a three-song EP. They were writing through a period of personal reflection and uncertainty, and they were conscious that heavy scenes can be wary when a familiar band starts sounding different.
Busch was the original singer. Bella first worked with Moral Bombing as a ghostwriter and then appeared with them live before joining permanently. Niklas moved to guitar and Max joined on bass. Max has also played with Hexis. The band say that version of the line-up was where they found the broader mix of genres and the stronger melancholy that carried forward.
Haider later took over bass. When his other band, Die Jugend Von Gestern, keeps him busy, Johannes steps in for Moral Bombing live. Johannes also plays in Eat Them!. Ole, who handles drums, backing vocals and sampler in Moral Bombing, makes music as the producer and DJ eratekk. The current core line-up is Bella on vocals, Niklas on guitar, Haider on bass and Ole on drums, backing vocals and sampler.
All of them have organised DIY shows since they were teenagers. Bella lives in Bochum. Dortmund is the centre of the band. MUK Dortmund is their rehearsal base, writing room and pre-production space, and it is where the drums and vocals for “Chrysopoeia” were recorded.
Rekorder and Stallgasse have closed. Subrosa, Nordpol, Hirsch Q and Krรคhe are still operating. Everyone in Moral Bombing plays elsewhere too. Those bands make very different music.
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The album artwork came from Bella. Katharina supplied the background photo as well as all of the band’s photos, alongside directing and producing the “dreamscapes//lilac heavens” video.
The first day of the Eastern Europe tour in Weimar ended with the band losing amps, instruments, pedals and merch to theft. A GoFundMe was set up to cover their losses and costs faced by Jugendzentrum Vortrefflich. In less than two weeks it was already close to its target.
Promoters, bands, people who came to the shows and people who found the story through Instagram sent money or offered help. Many had never spoken to Moral Bombing before. Others supplied patches, shirts and screen-printed prints for the band to sell, and refused payment for them.
On day two, Moral Bombing pulled together borrowed equipment from the Livit crew, bought what they were still missing and carried on with the tour.
“None of this would have been possible without the music scene we live and breathe in since we were teenagers. This is what hardcore is about – so much more than just music. This community is built on human connection, care, love, empathy and compassion.”
