It takes a lot of fuel to keep the fire burning, and this generic statement holds especially true for underground, DIY bands. The blood, sweat and tears creed also includes a significant financial sacrifice, and thus, any setback can be a dealbreaker. This story is about a major incident that Minenfeld (death metal, DE) and Prehistoric War Cult (black/death metal, DE) are dealing with at the moment, but also about the support that has risen in the wake of that unfortunate event.
Context
On the night of 24/25 October, after the Minenfeld and Prehistoric War Cult gigs in Bielefeld, Germany, someone broke into the bands’ car and sleeping quarters and stole a significant amount of gear, including but not limited to: guitars, pedal boards, drums, merch. The total damage is estimated at approximately 10 000€. Yes, you read that right.
Gravehammer exclusive live tape
Now, the underground community is closing it’s ranks, trying to help Minenfeld and Prehistoric War Cult to cover their losses. In support, the oldschool death metal band Gravehammer are releasing an exclusive live tape, and they will donate all the profits off of this release to the two bands.
The recording was taken live in Chřibská, Czech Republic, during the United in Brutality 2024 festival and is exclusive to this release. The cover art will be lino-printed by Vultures Cultures.
This is a pre-order only release. The band will collect all orders until November 30th. After that date, the item will be removed from the Bandcamp shop, so be sure to place your order until the end of the month!
Please be mindful that this is a DIY process and it will take some time. Gravehammer stated that the expected release date is going to be in the first quarter of 2025.
You can pre-order the tape now via Gravehammer’s Bandcamp page.
Additional support
If you want to take a more direct action, then you can send your support to the bands directly. In this regard, Prehistoric War Cult has also issued the following statement:
“We have taken a few days to think about the whole situation and decided to post our band paypal address. We usually don’t like taking more money than we really need and accepting charity money just feels wrong when there are so many other projects and causes out there worth supporting.
Nevertheless, our total damage after the break-in is in the ~10.000€ area and that is simply more than we can handle right now.
As such: If you want to support MINENFELD or PREHISTORIC WAR CULT financially, you can donate to the following paypal address:
prehistoric.war.cult@gmail.com
If you don’t have paypal, just write to us and we will figure something out!
Be assured that the money will go to both bands, despite the e-mail address. […]
Thank you so much for your support!!!”
Check out the bands
Curious about the bands? Here you go:
Gravehammer released their full-length Bones to Harvest last year, in December: check it out via Bandcamp.
Prehistoric War Cult unleashed their bestial war metal most recently with the 2024 release of Barbaric Metal: Bandcamp is once again the place to go.
Minenfeld‘s most recent release is a split with the black metal/crust punk band Hermann, titled Kernsplittung: you guessed it, this is a Bandcamp link.
