Kanonenfieber: Z-Vor Reivew
Kanonenfieber have returned, boots on deck and rifles loaded, to blast open the gates of metal warfare with their latest single “Z-Vor!”. And it is the opening salvo of a full-scale campaign called Soldatenschicksale, a war-themed compilation set to land January 30, 2026.
“Z-Vor!” is a grim historical reenactment wrapped in blast beats and barbed wire. The single dropped just in time for Kanonenfieber’s pulverising appearance at Summer Breeze Open Air 2025, detonated on stage at 1:15 AM like a well-timed artillery strike. The timing wasn’t accidental.
The band wanted the fog of sleep-deprivation and beer-sweat to meld with the chaos of naval warfare as they debuted a song forged in the steel horrors of the Battle of Jutland. This is WWI, and it’s real, baby. The largest naval battle of that godforsaken war, reimagined through death-metal fury and unnerving authenticity.
Noise’s Obsession with Truth and the Horrors of War
Kanonenfieber, the brainchild of the anonymous and masked figure known only as “Noise,” has always been obsessed with truth. Not textbook facts, but the stories that never made it past the mud-soaked boots of those who died face-down in No Man’s Land. With “Z-Vor!”, he narrows his focus to the chaos at sea.
The track opens with sampled radio chatter and sea-sick ambiance, a slow-building unease that gives way to tectonic riffing. The vocals come in like flak shrapnel, screaming commands and final breaths, each line sourced directly from archival material. This isn’t edgy fiction. These are real words. Real fates. Real death.
And that’s the whole damn concept of Soldatenschicksale, “Fates of Soldiers”, a fittingly clinical title for something so emotionally unflinching. The compilation stitches together remastered and revised versions of some of Kanonenfieber’s most iconic tracks, including “Ubootsperre”, “Der Füsilier”, and “The Yankee Division March”, alongside two brand-new pieces: “Z-Vor!” and its companion track “Die Havarie”. Together, they form what the band calls the Skagerrak cycle, a retelling of the Battle of Jutland through metallic fury and historical narrative.
Check out our interview with Kanonenfieber |
Check out our interview with Kanonenfieber |
Remastered and Reinforced: Older Tracks Given New Teeth
Kanonenfieber has taken a scalpel to the past, surgically enhancing the production, tightening the compositions, and layering in enough raw emotion to make even the most jaded war historian wince. The 2025 versions of older tracks hit harder, bleed deeper, and growl more menacingly. It’s the difference between reading a soldier’s diary and hearing his last scream.
The lyrical focus remains steadfastly on the individual. Every track is a funeral march for the forgotten. Kanonenfieber isn’t romanticising war; they’re dragging its bloated corpse into the spotlight and forcing you to look. The agony, the waste, the anonymity of it all, it’s wrapped in napalm and set alight with a torch made of truth.
What makes Kanonenfieber truly dangerous, though, is how deceptively listenable all of this is. The riffs on “Z-Vor!” are downright infectious, sinking into your subconscious like a shrapnel shard to the skull. The song moves with a kind of martial elegance, its tempo shifts mimicking the ebb and flow of sea combat. One minute you’re braced against the storm of double bass and tremolo picking; the next, you’re floating in eerie, synth-laced silence, as if drifting among the wreckage. It’s cinematic. It’s tragic. It’s fucking beautiful.
War Isn’t Glorious and Kanonenfieber Shows It
Thematically, “Z-Vor!” and the rest of Soldatenschicksale stand in defiance of the modern tendency to turn war into background noise. Kanonenfieber is here to remind us that history has teeth. Their work functions like an anti-glossary: instead of simplifying the past into digestible buzzwords, they amplify its horror, complexity, and humanity. There are no easy answers, no good guys or bad guys here. Just death. Just pain. Just metal.
As the metal world buzzes with new releases and trend-chasing projects, Kanonenfieber’s dedication to vision and message stands like a crumbling monument amidst plastic ruins. Noise doesn’t just want you to bang your head; he wants you to feel something. To learn something. To hurt a little. And that’s what sets them apart.
We saw this firsthand in our exclusive interview with Noise, where he opened up about the importance of historical integrity in Kanonenfieber’s work. “Propaganda was everything back then.” he told us “People were told glorious stories about pride, dignity and honor. In the end, most of them died in the mud, torn apart by shells.” His words stuck with us. They still do.
With the full Soldatenschicksale release on the horizon, January 30, 2026, promises to be a bleak and beautiful day for metal. It’ll be winter outside, but inside your headphones, it’ll be storming steel, screaming men, and the cries of a century-old war that never really ended. This is what historical metal should be: unflinching, savage, human.
Written by: Chort the Crop Infestor
“Hi, I’m Chort I infest crops and listen to Black Metal!”
