Tears: The Chemnitz duo knows how to weave pop and despair

Hypetown Chemnitz is broadcasting again – and how. After the Blond album PERLEN in spring 2023, another act is tearfully preparing to sort out the local pop events in a completely new way, even without a connection to Berlin. Tears are a duo. The bespectacled guy with a beard is known as the guitarist of the band Kraftklub. Steffen Israel – striking name, reserved manner. In his radio show “Radio mit K” he played the piece “Hands, dried” – it wasn’t that long ago. It comes from the musician Gwen Dolyn and brings the two into contact.

The idea soon comes up to transform a punk song into a kind of EmoNDW wave – after that at least the result will be heard at some point. Gwen Dolyn already did something similar in the form of a cover version of the dark punk piece “Dr. Murke’s Collected Silence” by EA80. She and Steffen are now dedicating themselves to the “Duel of the Last”, originally by the band ChaosZ. But as enthusiastic as the two of them are for their (supposedly) unique project, they are unable to finally finish the piece. “We always said we’d let it rest for a moment,” says Gwen, “and when we release it at some point, we knew it would be cool to have one or two more pieces – so that “Don’t stand so alone.”

Just accidentally made a debut album

In addition to the “Duel of the Last”, which had been put aside several times, a collection of their own songs suddenly appeared. Tears are confronted with the fact that they started their debut album under (their own) radar. Oops!

And that audibly benefits from the fact that not everything was defined and is in tears. The pleasure principle leads to a stylistically variable record that doesn’t have to be musically fixed and yet sounds like the statement of an act that knows exactly what it wants in terms of sound and, above all, what it doesn’t want. Plus the bittersweet urgency in Gwen’s singing and her way of writing lyrics that go beyond the cheap and empty jingle of German acts. A mixture of encrypted poetry and drama keeps the tension high. This plate has a significantly increased adrenaline level.

Somehow everything seems to mesh with Gwen and Steffen, so much so that Gwen moves from the tranquil West German town of Darmstadt to Chemnitz. Chemnitz, where the dudes from Kraftklub actually made the announcement of “I don’t want to go to Berlin” come true. When asked about Steffen’s band, Gwen shrugs her shoulders somewhat embarrassed. As a strength club fangirl, she didn’t end up in this two-person constellation, that quickly becomes clear – and that makes the joint project appear even more balanced, even if it didn’t need such confirmation. Two iconoclastic, self-deprecating, adorable nerds with a lot of superpowers have simply found each other here. Even if they weren’t looking for each other in the first place. HAIR OF A DOG by Tears has become, without a plan, the most impressive pop debut of the year. What happens next? You can be surprised – Gwen and Steffen don’t do it any other way.