Gewalt – Berlin’s brutalist “Wut Wave” torchbearers of the avant-garde – lurch back into the spotlight with Felicità, a track that stomps, snarls, and spits in lockstep with a world unraveling at the seams. Linn Drum, Henfling, Wagner, and Astolfi summon a strain of Berlin minimalism boiled under pressure: post-punk precision soaked in diesel and defiance. Here, the cracked theatrics of The Tubes collide with Tuxedomoon’s contorted chill, Martin Dupont’s brittle elegance, the hammering force of Killing Joke’s militant rhythm, and the rhythmic twang of The Chameleons.
The lyrics to Felicità sketch a world in slow-motion collapse: an S-Bahn scene soaked in rot and resignation. A woman, worn and weathered by chemicals and circumstance, croaks out “felicità” with no teeth…and no illusion. A child watches. Wonders. Asks what the word even means while their mother scrolls through brighter days: bikinis, beach bars, better years. The sky outside grows heavier with each verse. Inside, all feels fractured.
Shot during Gewalt’s US/Mexico tour alongside New York noise legends White Hills, Gewalt & Ego Sensation’s video for Felicita unfolds in Manhattan’s East Village, a cracked crucible of collapse, a cathedral of contradiction. Gewalt echoes the threadbare ghosts of the city’s No Wave past, where chaos once reigned in clubs now dwarfed, or even swallowed whole, by soulless glass monoliths. These towers leer down at bodies broken by fentanyl and failure, monuments to the slow-motion wreck of late-stage everything.
It’s a fitting graveyard for Felicita, a track that grins through the rubble, guttural and glorious, howling with laughter at the lie that anything’s still holding together.
Watch the video for “Felicita” below:
The band has been on tour with Jack White, played Shows at Haldern Pop, Fusion, Maifeld Derby, c/o Pop and Synästhesie Festival.
In 2024, they released their second album, Doppeldenk, featuring ten tracks that critique societal perversions. Listen to Felicità below and order Doppeldenk here.
Catch GEWALT live:
- April 10. (UK) Brighton – Daltons
- April 11. (UK) Leicester – The International
- April 12. (UK) London – Rough Trade East
- April 13. (UK) Liverpool Rough Trade
- April 15. (UK) London – Signature Brew
- April.16. (DE) Hannover – Café Glocksee *w/Plattenbau
- April 17. (DE) Aachen – Musikbunker *w/Plattenbau
- April 18. (CH) Luzern – Sedel
- April 19. (DE) Nürnberg – Z-Bau
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