: The first edition of this album is published as
1. Double CD in hardcover-digibook
2. Bonus-CD with new versions of MANTUS classics
3. 28-pages booklet
4. Semi matte art print on selected high-quality paper
5. Strictly limited to 2,000 copies world-wide
15 years of German Gothic history reach their tentative peak! 15 years of melancholy, of musical grief, of despair and of solitude culminate in a new studio album that is bearing the agony, the power and the wrath of the last 15 years and is yet gazing into the future. And above all that, above the dark melodies and the elegiac vocals, a single name looms. A name that could not be chosen better for this album, for this music, for this career: „Melancholia“.
The end of all things is near. We knew that. We didn't know, however, how near it was. Martin Schindler did. After 15 years behind the steering wheel of Gothic galley MANTUS he should have said everything, should have done everything to free his demons and gain salvation. But apparently, he didn't, which is why he struggles on. „Melancholia“ tells of battles and of failures in a hostile world, tells how hard it is not to lose hope when faced with war, sorrow, terror and injustice. How hard it is not to look away. And thus, „Melancholia“ begins with the end – with „Die Welt zerbricht“, a monument for depression, a song carried by a waltzing heaviness repeating one thing over and over again: „Und wir haben keine Tränen mehr.“
Why is he still carrying on? Why is he still the architect of his sorrow, the composer of his very own reqiuem? Because he has no other choice. He is haunted, hoping against all odds that even after 15 years he will find answers in his dark music, in his suffering and cathartic lyrics. After the last, more or less worldly albums, „Melancholia“ gazes at the inside, at the fragile soul of Martin Schindler, at his thoughts, his doubts, these always returning doubts and at the spectres of his past. Never has he written a more intimate and personal song than „Auf Papier“ whose oceanic strings and pressing Metal guitars allow a totally unobsured view of his inner life.
