Back in 2003, I stumbled on a song that I loved instantly, though I didn't understand a word of its all-German lyrics: kein zurück. Peter Heppner's vocals, mixed with the haunting and mellow synthpop melodies just captivated me. The videoclip didn't really help understanding the story, as it shows a young woman in a laundry service room, throwing laundry in anger, and escorted out by security - making eye contact with Wolfsheim members within and without, before knocking someone off a bike...
Using a translation website, I gathered that it's about a broken relationship, and that it's too late to go back to it, despite having learned important things.
I subsequently listened to a few more songs on youtube, and liked them enough to order the cd, where I re-discovered Kein zurück as track 4.
Track 9 is also in German, Wundervoll, which evidently means 'wonderful'. Its translation gives roughly something about "a rush of light, sea of colors, the passage of time and isn't the third night the speaker's been around? ".
Track 11, 'in time' is instrumental, and everything else is in English, so you'll be able to find their lyrics easily.
I love the sounds of this album, albeit classified only as synthpop, but also including dark wave sounds like the rest of this band's albums. I am both sad and happy that they finished in a musical climax, the peak of their career being the end of their collaboration, as the members split shortly after, due to different creative inspirations and needs at the time.
Casting shadows, much in the image of its first released single, mentioned above, mixes beautifully the melancholic lyrics and mellow melodies that are more or less present in almost every track, with faster pace, such as in track 10, approaching lightspeed ; we hear mostly slow, mellow, synthpop with dark wave overtones.
In one way or another, the main theme in all songs is of inabilities in relationships, one's shadows and flaws - which one can transpose all the lyrics into the creative relationship of the band itself - if we want to, but it may very well not be the case.
The beauty in music and in such writing, is that songs can be understood on more than one level, so I suggest you give it a listen, especially if you like synthpop and/or dark wave.
Casting Shadows is the 6th full length studio album and 7th release from Wolfsheim - including their compilation 55578 from 1995.
I love every track and this album is my favorite from Wolfshein, hands down.
My edition is EAN 40156982270-24 from Indigo/ Strange Wave. It has three differences from other editions, but only two are important :it's copy-protected (all German editions are, the others aren't), and comes with cd2 called Magix Music Maker, which is actually a cd-rom to install and create one's own remixes - not that I ever tried using it and may not be able as its Windows compatibility was for versions 95 to XP.
It's also a digipack, and comes with a lyrics booklet.
There are 11 tracks for all commercial editions, and are identical in order and duration.
My edition didn't include track duration, so I'll add.
1. "Everyone Who Casts a Shadow" (4:47)
2. "Care For You" (5:07)
3. "I Won't Believe" (3:30)
4. "Kein Zurück" (3:50)
5. "And I..." (4:03)
6. "Underneath the Veil" (4:10)
7. "Find You're Gone" (4:23)
8. "This is for Love" (3:16)
9. "Wundervoll" (4:54)
10. "Approaching Lightspeed" (3:16)
11. "In Time" (5:34)
Total : 46:50
Art is minimal and all this black both front and back (next image) can represent the shadows.
The art is uniform in both sides.
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