Callejon

Emerging in Germany as a metal outfit that performs exclusively in its native tongue, Callejon first gained widespread attention in 2010 upon unveiling Videodrom, its third full-length and a release inspired by the films of David Cronenberg. The Düsseldorf-based unit fuses atmospheric hard rock with punishing metalcore, an approach that has prompted observers to liken the results to those of contemporaries Unearth, Soilwork, and Parkway Drive. Since its formation in 2002 the group has issued numerous EPs and albums, cementing its status among Western Europe’s most volatile and versatile heavy-music acts.

The five musicians who came together that year in Düsseldorf—vocalist Bastian Sobtzick, guitarists Thomas Buschhausen and Bernhard Horn, bassist Thorsten Becker, and drummer Maximilian Kotzmann—issued their first recording, the My Favourite Toy EP Chonos, in 2005. Their debut album, Willkommen im Beerdigungscafé, followed in 2006; two years later they moved to Nuclear Blast for Zombieactionhauptquarter. International recognition arrived with the 2010 release of Videodrom, after which the band left Nuclear Blast and aligned with Four Music. The new partnership yielded Blitzkreuz in 2012, Man Spricht Deutch in 2013, and Wir sind Angst in 2015, each of which reached the Top Ten of the German hard-rock charts. Century Media issued the seventh studio album, Fandigo, in 2017, featuring the lineup of Sobtzick, Horn, Becker, Kotzmann, and guitarist Christoph Koterzina.