Die Allergie:

Die Allergie:
We are Die Allergie and you are the reason for it!

Founded in 1993, Die Allergie emerged from the masses of local bands through their confirmed belief in German lyrics and Metal-Core. Through countless shows with bands such as Kreator, Schweisser, Laibach, Totenmond and Subway to Sally, amongst others, the reputation of the band as an excellent live act and carrier of hope for the German music scene reached even the ears of EMI. In 1995, EMI/Spin Records took Die Allergie immediately under contract and in this same year the debut, "Psalm in Blei", came out on the market. Reaction by the press went only two ways, love or hate. This was exactly Die Allergie's intention as, for them, there is no middle ground. After this followed tours with Napalm Death, Crowbar, Fleischmann, KindTot and Rinderwahnsinn which introduced the band to the entire republic and and solidly established a confirmed fanbase for themselves.

In 1996, EMI decided to place Die Allergie under contract with the industrial sublabel, Spin Records. After an intensive 2 years of working together the band decided to go their own way and leave Spin Records, which dissolved a short time later anyway.

In the beginning of 1998, the band released their self-produced MCD, "Demokratie", which was well received by fans and press alike and resulted in more labels showing an interest in the band. It takes time to do a thing well, thus Die Allergie took plenty of time to examine the numerous offers in depth. In July, 1998, the decision was made in favor of Rise Up, a sublabel founded especially for Die Allergie by Last Episode Productions.

Rise Up offered the up and coming quintet act, through keyboarder Danny Böhm, every possibility to resume their own path. In February, 1999, the label released Die Allergie's second album, "Dunkelgraue Lieder für das nächste Jahrtausend", which, through aggressively ironic lyrics and the brutal, painfilled dark wall of music, held up for humanity a mirror of the daily ugly face of reality; across Europe 10,000 copies were sold.

In the beginning of 2000, the band spent 3 months in the Roth Recording Studio in order to produce their album, "Virus III", under the direction of Dieter Roth. Musically the band had lost none of their hardness, the song material also appeared more mature and tighter than ever before. Various journalists presented euphoric "Allergic" reviews based on the band's studio report in March 2000.

After the recording of "Virus III" bassist Markus Knapp (ex-Atrocity) left the band for private reasons. In Jan Beckmann, Die Allergie found a new comrade in arms but, due to his professional career, he had to leave a short time later. Markus Knapp decided to again take the bass in hand with Die Allergie and he's been a solid component of the band ever since.

Die Allergie parted ways with Rise Up as the sales numbers of "Virus III" didn't meet the expectations that the label had imagined. The band also felt that they didn't have full support from the label which should have recognized "Virus III" as a first class album from the start!

The singer, Albi, was, due to false evidence, arrested by the police and sat in jail until September 2001. As he had, at this time, drug problems, he had to go through a drug rehab program which he successfully completed.

The men close to Albi were unsettled & brought to a halt. No one quite knew what would happen next. Once again they found themselves without a label or tour. Once it was known how long they'd be without a front man, they decided to use the time as creatively as possible in order to have some new songs to work on after his return. Albi is again walking free and is clean!

In their lyrics Die Allergie deals with the deviancies that exist in all of us such as egotism, megalomania, greed, obsession and destructive urges even as far as necrophilia. Musically Die Allergie is hard to categorize. The wide span swings from Pantera over Pro Pain (with whom Die Allergie completed a successful 4-week European tour in the spring of 1999 along with Temple of the Absurd) towards Fear Factory and Crowbar, through all shades of the extreme, without allowing themselves to fit into a definitive classification. The term Industrial Metal-Core is the most fitting category that comes straight to mind. -Mikki 5/05

More at:

Fansite