Bethlehem

Black Metal band from Grevenbroich (Germany) known for inventing a whole new sub-genre of metal, called Dark Metal. Formed in 1991. 5 full albums (1994 - 2004). A new album is scheduled for 2009. Bethlehem's songs have morbid and sick lyrics about suicide, death and madness that may for the most part be personal to the band. They are very difficult to understand even for German speakers for their complexity and because they are full of metaphors. On Dictius Te Necare (lat. You should/must kill yourself) Rainer Landfermann, well-known from the German Death metal band Pavor, is the vocalist, whose voice is described by Kostas Panagiotou as "one of the sickest and most extreme voices you'll ever hear from a human being". On S.U.I.Z.I.D. his place is taken by Marco Kehren of the band Deinonychus. Guido Meyer de Voltaire, the vocalist from Schatten aus der Alexanderwelt and Mein Weg, is also well-known with his Band Aardvarks. His vocal performance is equally extreme, though a lot more varied. Andreas Classen, vocalist on Dark Metal also did vocals for Paragon Belial, a German black metal band. Over the years Bethlehem modernized their style and so the early Black and Doom metal influences are now hardly present, the band favouring a more Neue Deutsche Härte (New German Hardness), Gothic and Electronic approach. In 1998 Bethlehem collaborates on the soundtrack for the American underground movie Gummo with the tracks Schuld uns'res knöcherigen Faltpferds and Verschleierte Irreligiösität.