Black Salvation

Exploding into a thousand shards of awesome at the unlikely nexus of heavy metal, post-punk,
protest rock, krautrock, and traditional rhythm & blues, Germany-based BLACK
SALVATION​——are obviously not playing by conventional rules. Not in the way they approach
their unique brand of psychedelic hard rock. Not in the DIY way they recorded new album,
Uncertainty is Bliss. And certainly not as composers and actors in the
Max-Ophüls-Preis-nominated short-film Wald. While safe thinkers covet and cradle known
tenets, BLACK SALVATION ​are blasting fantastic between unknown of inner and outer worlds
of rockdom.
Formed in Leipzig in 2009 by Paul Schlesier, BLACK SALVATION’s​ early years pivoted on
jamming gritty dirges, à la Electric Wizard, and elongated, repetition-based space-outs. Over the
next few years, the Germans, with bassist Birger Schwidop and drummer Christian Seitz in tow,
honed their craft and assisted in the foundation of Into Endless Chaos (IEC), a DIY organization
of Leipzig-based counter-culture musicians and artists. Confident in their heavy wander and
galvanized by their IEC interactions, BLACK SALVATION​ released their debut album, In Deep
Circles, without label support in 2014. Praised equally for its riff-based rockers (‘Reveal the
Night’ and ‘Black Spell’) and lava lamp runs (‘Silent Magic Spring’ and ‘The Devil sent us an
Angel’), In Deep Circles illustrated BLACK SALVATION​ were crafty, adventurous songwriters
with designs on rocking stranger things the hard way.
For new album Uncertainty is Bliss, Schlesier and Schwidop wrote together—drummer Seitz
had already exited. Finding capable drummers was relatively easy, but getting the right fit, both
musically and philosophically, proved to be a challenge. So, Schlesier and Schwidop kept
BLACK SALVATION’s​ newest odes to the uncharted simple but imaginative. The result was a
puzzle of drums, overdubbed bass, fuzzy yet nimble guitar, and Schlesier’s baritone vocals. The
glint of genius in the early versions of ‘In a Casket’s Ride,’ ‘Leair,’ ‘A Direction is Futile,’ and
‘Floating Torpid’ was all too real, but BLACK SALVATION ​needed the right drummer—a
skinsman with significant swing and a sizable attitude—to send them into the stratosphere.
Enter Uno Bruniusson.
With Bruniusson behind the kit and the vibes at 11, BLACK SALVATION ​wasted little time—a
week, basically—before entering an unnamed rehearsal room (not a studio proper) to track
Uncertainty is Bliss. They had as long as they needed, but environmentally it wasn’t the best
place to record a trans-genre, beyond-space masterpiece. For eight days, BLACK SALVATION
fought the confines of the rehearsal room. But between high-end mics and a vintage, if
temperamental 8-track Fostex tape machine, they emerged with a modern-day gem of
psychedelic hard rock madness. The songs were eventually transferred to computer, where the
finishing touches—overdubs and vocals—were constructed for mixing and mastering aces
Martin "Konie" Ehrencrona (Tribulation, In Solitude) and Pieter Kloos (SunO))), The Devil’s
Blood).