Music Theories Recordings / Mascot Label Group are thrilled to announce the release of the brand new studio album War Is Over from the award winning cinematic Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers which will be out on 3rd November 2017. It’s the band’s debut release with the label after signing with them in July of this year.
The Von Hertzen Brothers are guitarist-vocalist Kie von Hertzen, singer-guitarist Mikko von Hertzen and vocalist-bass guitarist Jonne von Hertzen. The chart topping band have had 3 #1 albums (Stars Aligned, New Day Rising, Love Remains the Same) and another 2 Top 5 albums (Nine Lives, Approach) in their homeland.
This has led to them scooping an Emma Award (The Finnish Grammy) and a Progressive Music ‘Anthem of the Year’ Award as well as nominations and plaudits along the way due to their ability to blend complex arrangements, expansive musical landscapes and surging tension all entwined with gloriously uplifting melodies.
It is this sonic exploration that has seen them blaze a trail across Europe since 2000, leading them to play with artists from Foo Fighters, 30 Seconds to Mars, Neil Young, Biffy Clyro, The Wildhearts and ZZ Top to Anathema and Opeth.
Check out the lyric video for first single The Arsonist
War Is Over follows on from 2015’s acclaimed New Day Rising and saw the band take a new approach to their songwriting technique. Brothers Mikko, Kie and Jonne von Hertzen took time to write separately. “We have a summer cottage outside Helsinki” explains Kie. “All three of us would take turns to withdraw and head up there to write music. It’s a beautiful place in the inner Archipelago of the Eastern Sea. It’s where we used to spend our childhood summers so has a deep and personal connection. The main part of composing happens there in total peace and quiet.”
Following New Day Rising the trio wanted to invert themselves, strip everything back and except for drums, play all of the instruments and produce the record themselves. “We wanted to find the inspiration and energy in our doing, we had a discussion between us about if we still have it in us, are we still up for this?” Kie ponders. “We wanted to break everything we’ve built into pieces and start again, do we still have the passion and music within us? We discussed having an open-ended period of a break and then started to dig deep in writing new music and then songs started to sprout” he reveals. “We’re on a VHB mission, we’re not going to bend and break. We then started to come up with some new sounding VHB songs.”
The band’s music has always been expansive and layered with underlining concepts and themes but they have always kept away from any politically leaning subjects, “but over the last 5 years or so” Kie begins. “the social tensions in the Western world and the structural change along with the European refugee crisis, growing inequality and hate speech reach you with a force so it becomes impossible for it not to affect your art.”
War Is Over isn’t a concept album, but the War theme does run through key songs. “There is a sense of ‘what is humanity doing, why are we fighting everyday’” Mikko remarks before adding there is a “fear and the constant struggle, so, come and join this movement, let’s not succumb to fear.”
