Legendary Belgian post-punk Soviet War comes with new and old work
Out on October 7th is “Psychopuppets”, the new album by the legendary Leuven based post-punk band Soviet War.
The release comes out on Track & Traces, a sister label of Starman Records founded by veteran Roland Beelen (Antler). Via Tracks & Traces Beelen releases material from artists who at the same time have strong roots in the past and enough creativity to produce new material in the present. Previous albums have been released by, among others, TB Frank & Baustein, TV Smith, Honeymoon Cowboys (Siglo XX) and Suns of Arqa.
Included on the release is archive and live material from the early 80’s, plus new material. The band is also touring again and recently played support for The Stranglers in Het Depot , Leuven.
Formed as The Soviets the primitive punk of the early years evolved into post-punk, as a result the band changed their name to Soviet War. The band recorded a cassette ‘Bootleg’ and sold hundreds of copies at concerts, but when the Anything But label put one of their songs, “The Nuthouse”, on its compilation “No Big Business 2” the band also recorded “Just a Story” during the same sessions. The track would end up on the “Koude Golven” compilation. In 1982 a second recording session resulted in the single “It became a problem/Guns for fun” on the same Anything But label and two other unreleased tracks, which you can finally find on this LP.
In early 1983, guitarist Leon left and the band split up. 36 years later, in 2019, Soviet War reformed with the three remaining original members, Bergy, Tirre and Zip joined by new guitarist Koen. Corona prevented their comeback concert from taking place, Instead they started work on new songs. As soon as the live circuit regained some breathing space in the autumn of 2021, concerts finally followed.
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
