Cologne / Dresden modern hardcore band GIVER have shared an interesting new video for their new track “Nieder”, out today via End Hits Records. The stand-alone single might end up on the band’s next full length, but for now it serves as a powerful, thought-provoking post-COVID comeback from the band who picked itself up off the ground again and comes back with a lot of potential for future releases.
GIVER’s second album “Sculpture Of Violence” was released on February 7, 2020 and premiered in the American Revolver Magazine. As the band has always been influenced by themes such as anti-fascism, climate justice, feminism, critical masculinity and anti-capitalism, “Sculpture Of Violence” is also a political album, which opens its mouth. After the cancellation of all tours of the album cycle due to the pandemic, the band withdrew, wrote new material and worked together with interviewees Ismet Büyük, Kutlu Yurtseven and Ali Yildirim on the video project “Nieder”. The song and visual material deal with racist attacks in Germany and name their ideological perpetrators, formulating a critique of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the police. The focus is clearly on the perspective of those affected.
The band’s new song “Nieder” is about racist and fascist continuities in state and police. “It is a songs about the fact that racism kills.” – admits the band. “We’ve had some terrible racist terror-attacks and killings in Germany in the last years and we think it is very important to clearly name the institutions and actos who create a social climate that leads to such things.”
“Racist reporting, right wing and conservative parties are just as well to blame for these murders as a police apparatus that creates and protects right-wing networks in its own ranks. In the video we wanted to give those affected a chance to speak and put their perspectives clearly in the foreground. We have worked and conducted interviews with Ismet Büyük, Kutlu Yurtseven and Ali Yildirim who have witnessed the attacks in Hanau and Cologne and have lost friends in it. We admire their bravery and spirit.”
Speaking about their perspective on the current political climate in Europe, the band continues: “Our generation is and will be living through bigger and bigger crises of a form of capitalism that has spiralled out of control. The social divide between rich and poor as well as the climate catastrophe take on proportions that have been unknown to our societies. They reinforce racist and decimating dynamics as we can witness with the rise of the far-right all over the world. It is time to do more than just go to punk shows and clap each other on the shoulder for the just moral stand one has. We need to organize as workers, anti-fascists, feminists, anti-racists in order to counterweight the dangers these crises hold. The future still exists. And it holds nothing but confrontation.”
Asked about their take on the post-COVID state of their local scene, they admit that the pandemic hit a lot of DIY structures very hard. “Not only because bands and collectives called it a day in these hard years but also because the scene is very fast moving and circumstances changed. I feel like we are still in the process of understanding what these past three years did to us and our scene.”
As for specific bands, GIVER says that Cologne has a few really good new hardcore bands like Suspect and Echo Chamber who released amazing first EPs this year.
“Also Ben and Chris released an LP with their second band “Between Bodies” that you should check out if you are into emo/punk.” – they recommend.
