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Actuation through Differentness

„Actually everything is different“ knows guitarist and songwriter Nils Tinnemeyer in Maintain to report about the second album and meets with the nail on the head in such a manner that this Mantra could be stung in addition to his other innumerable Tattoos. The five metalheads from North-Germany are already different in quite everything since their establishment in the year 1998.

At that time in the lowlandses of Lower Saxony it were first the musicians, who were different. They differed from their school fellows, friends and the remainders of the villages, in which they grew up. That became already apparent in the fact that Nils and Co. were interested in a music direction called hardcore. A music, whose energy is flogged point-exactly in maximally three minutes in most brutal speed from the boxes and that transports something in its texts, a message. Bands such as Biohazard led into the scene and thus to Earth Crisis or Snapcase and finally into the local youth centres, where also local Bands were into this style of music. Inspired by their sorroundings the young men founded the band Maintain and proved fast that they were also here again something special. Because although the statement and raw power of hardcore stood close to them, they were not convinced of the technically rather simple style and turned to Metal as the second inspiration. „There were many bands in our surrounding field that played, but we always were already more into the Metal- Influenced style such as “Turmoil” for instance. Not so classically Old School. We continued to develop technically, which has only quite limited possibilities within hardcore. We wanted to write good Lyrics, but also advance as musicians. The roots remain clearly recognizable and make Maintain become differently even in the Metal and Hardcore scene, because bands such as Caliban, Mendeed or Killswitch Engage are aware of their roots lying clearly within Metal.

With “Reveal Our Disguise to an Infinite Abyss“ in 2005, they succeeded in throwing their debut album on the starving Metal and Hardcore market. Once again Maintain proved courage to be different and decided to do a production completely based on the „Do It Yourself “ mentality and also giving it into the hands of a quite known hardcore producer. Nils laughs while sharing his memories of the recording session: „He never ever recorded Metal before, therefore we actually more or less said him what had to be done. That was a great experience for him and for us. But it turned out great, it was our debut and we were more or less youngbloods. It turned out so cool that even Metal Hammer and RockHard praised the album in highest tones and Maintain could secure themelves various live-appearances in the future. One of the highlights might have surely been the support of Caliban on their last European tour.

At autumn 2006 the activities were terminated and then the guys headed up to new banks. A way, which was firstly connected with a personnel change soon to be walked with Benjamin Rase as their new drummer. “That was rather hard, because we had one month left until the recording of our new CD started. But Benjamin is a Metal-Monster-Drummer, this man is a genuine projectile. Even the producer was stoked concerning his drumming. Within one month he learned the set for the Pressure festival and the complete album, while making his graduation.“ Nils seems very enthusiastically about the new Maintain member and also the album obtained a big shot of fresh energy. The new album „With A Vengeance “was then taken with the help of this new manpower in November/December 2006 in Denmark by producing-legend Jacob Hansen (Maroon, Heaven Shall Burn, Fear My Thoughts, Mercenary among others). Those young men had to face the fact for the first time that now their past differentness and the self-implementation demanded a further development from them as Nils explains: “Jacob partly said to us that certain things we did was simply shit. That was a reality check we’ve never had before. But the more you learn, the more you get aware of all those things that you don’t know. After we worked with Jacob, I looked at these old Gods such as Eddie Van Halen, which I wouldn’t have done in former times. And then suddenly you realize, what such people are able to do.”

The album “With A Vengeance“ is a milestone for Maintain, an enormous step towards a professional music career. Floating, energetically, strong. In addition versatile due to it’s different moods, because “With A Vengeance “ can not be attached to only one certain sound. “Actually is everything different. This album is way more versatile: it is faster and more slowly, harder and softer. The new record goes into all directions way more than our predecessor. This time we’ve put our goals further on and I think we’ve reached them“, says Nils in a fully accurate way. The album is an extension to the debut, the music is consistently more towards Metal, technically matured and above all more variable than “Reveal…“ was, because the Songs developed this time not from the identification phase of Maintain, but as a part of a process, which welded the members together. The songs reflect that Maintain found themselves. The self-imposed pressure to obtain a success with this album has compressed the album in such a way that it nearly appears like a substantial unloading of energy while hearing “With A Vengeance“. “Therefore the album is also called “With A Vengeance“. With this album the band stands and falls, if it turns out badly… “ says Nils halfway joking and we know, the band has always been a little different. But we do not need to be concerned, because this album is already something - and if it is only DIFFERENT …

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