Wünsch Mir Glück. Steiner und Madlaina

In the fall of 2018 Steiner und Madlaina made their debut on this blog with the nice and diverse album 'Cheers!'. I lauded the diversity of the songs and the exuberant presentation of the Swiss duo. Come 2021 and the duo is ready to present its second full length album. Wünsch Mir Glück comes with a few changes. On the new album the language is German. No more English and Schweizer Deutsch.

What has not changed that there is lot for the ears to digest, explore and enjoy. The possibilities the songs offer are explored fully and many little extras come by in the form of nice overdubs, little melodies that creep into my ears to stick there with ease.

Take the second song, 'Prost Mein Schatz'. The mood is so melancholy, suiting the tears that are sung about in the chorus as things are not going well in this relationship, despite the love that is there. Slowly but surely the song gets bigger and bigger from the elementary start. Instruments are added, synths lay down whole tapestries of sounds. All underscoring the sad mood, no, resigned mood that the song holds within it. It is all I need to pull me into Wünsch Mir Glück and relax for the duration of the ride.

In my previous review I made comparisons with Sophie Hunger, 'Scandal Im Sperbezirk', Nancy Sinatra and some more, combining the 10s with the 60s and all in between. A lot can be skipped here as the duo goes for a far darker sound and itself. What remains is Nancy Sinatra in a dark rocksetting, singing in German. There are nods to the 60s but this music did not exist at the time. Nor the recording technique to create this wide a sound. The singer is standing in from me it seems while I'm listening. The band, huge, behind her. So cool, so wide-spaced, so mesmerising. The music is almost hypnotic. 'Und Die Bin Ich', is huge with a guitar (solo) larger than life within the context of this rocking song. The sound of the guitar simply engulfs me, emerges me while the whole brings me to the moon and back.

Photo: Tim Wettstein

Moving into the middle of the album, the softer songs are left behind for a tight rock setting. The duo's life band gets the full sonic picture here. Leonardo Guadaramma (drums), Nico Sörensen (bass) and Max Kämmerling (E-guitar) can really go for it, creating a full sound. And even then don't expect a one dimensional rock song. It can fall apart completely as in 'Wann Ich Ein Junge Wäre" when a psychedelic outing sends the song in a different direction before it's brought back together again.

It leaves enough room for some bittersweet ballads further on on the album. 'So Schön Wie Heute' has that mood that stands for parts of Wünsch Mir Glück. Two faces of the same duo that show how this duo has progressed in the past two and a half years since the release of 'Cheers!'. Older, wiser, sadder? The optimistic, exuberant cheers was traded in for cheers, my dear and wish me luck. Musically it has done Steiner und Madlaina lots of good. The new album is fantastic. There are no other words for it.

Wo.

You can order Wünsch Mir Glück here:

https://mailorder.glitterhouse.com/album/1/pop--independent/1129642/wuensch-mir-glueck-(ltd-edition--poster).html

or listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g