Steel of Swabia

The debut. The band comes from Burladingen and Münsingen, two towns in Swabia in southern Germany, and its roots reach back to Blues Kids, the school band the brothers Ande and Hannes Braun started in 2002. At School Jam 2006 a special prize for "the youngest band" was created for them. From early 2007 they worked with the Flensburg production team Elephant Music, and the demos sent out at the end of that year led to a deal with Capitol/EMI. These twelve songs are what came of it. The tempos are quick, the choruses large, and the hard rock is straighter than the players' ages would suggest. From the opening "Let's Get Freaky" through "Zombie" and "Ready Steady Thunder" the songs are short and the hooks plain. The title track raises their own region as a banner; the band would later call it the secret Swabian anthem. Two singles went out on 10 May 2008, "Freaky" and "My Religion", the latter with a clip directed by Dennis Lehmann. AFM Records reissued the record on 4 June 2012. Six of its songs were re-recorded for the self-titled album of 2026, which makes this early record unusually alive for its age.