New album from Chemnitz duo Tears: First dogs, then cats and aliens

A huge record rolls across the Reeperbahn in Hamburg-Sankt Pauli. Instead of the usual twelve inches, its diameter is around three meters. The duo Tears from Chemnitz - Gwendolyn Schneider-Rothaar and Steffen Israel - laboriously roll their new work to the fans, the message gets through: There is still real handwork here.

Taken off because of it. The way the weight of the giant vinyl forces its two pushers to their knees looks very down-to-earth. A little suffering for art is allowed sometimes. In front of the fans waiting in suspense, tears laboriously lifted the oversized work of art onto an equally oversized record player, all the effort for their listening session, which takes place open air at the Reeperbahn Festival.

“Living in a Cat” is the name of Tears’ new album. A cat, called Lutz, blue and cuddly, also adorns the cover. Apparently it has now been lost, as Gwen Dolyn announces somewhat nebulously. Another twist to the promotional campaign? But does any exciting music emerge from the grooves of this sensational work?

Tears: “Life in a Cat” (Eklat Tonträger/Warner Brothers); the tour begins at the end of February 2027

The fall height is high, not only literally (three meters in diameter), but also figuratively. Because the tears' incredibly good debut album, “Hair of a Dog”, set the bar high. It was already convincing in 2024 with its slightly eccentric lyrics by the poetically inclined composer Gwen Dolyn. In her texts, the young woman sometimes deals with heartbreak and sometimes political issues. Steffen Israel's leading guitar plays memorable hooks. Now, two years later, “Leben in einer Katzen” continues with a poppy to punk sound.

Tears now enjoy a certain level of fame, also fueled by Israel's job as Kraftklub guitarist - a band that offers solid pop-rock music and critical lyrics with a lot of verve. Gwen Dolyn's solo album also had unmistakable sophistication: pop songs full of conflicting feelings that society doesn't always want to accept and which, as she titled it, are x-rated.

The twelve new songs by the two Chemnitz musicians are in the same vein. This time the dominant feeling in the lyrics is alienation. They feel alienated, different from everyone else, and figure out why. The alien film of tears doesn't seem bloodthirsty, dark or conjuring up danger at all; the music shimmers more in a nostalgic, mottled way in blue and orange, with appropriate rhymes about crop circles in corn fields. The album expresses a fundamental need: Gwen Dolyn wants her to pick up a UFO, she wants to go to the moon and then drift away.

Actually, there always seems to be a need for belonging behind it. “Oh Honey” sums it up: “Make me feel like I can be, that I can stay.” Musically, it also seems alien-like every now and then when the autotune vocal effect is used and electronic sounds circle around the orbit of tears. Mostly, however, pop with a noughties vibe à la We Are Heroes dominates.

It can sometimes sound cheesy: “I want you/ Not the moon/ Not its weight/ Not all the stars/ Not the orbit, just your real warm light.” However, what is well framed by wonderful weirdness: "Wants to kill everything that can't be bought. Are we cats or aliens?"

But because tears are human and everyday life remains stressful for them, conflicting feelings between freedom and loneliness, longing and rejection come to the fore: “I wanted a kiss, now I get a kick” - an immediately recognizable reference to the Tears debut album for fans. Other quotes range from the Swedish cardigans to the Offenbach rap star arrest warrant.

With the new album, Tears clearly shows that their record has more than just two sides. Because which genre is best suited to singing about alienation and exclusion? Punk! Together with Maxim, a member of the Berlin rap crew KIZ, Tears cover the masochistic German punk classic “Ordinäre Liebe” by the band Toxoplasma from 1983. And “When she sweats” is a biting song against the heterosexual male view of women, performed in an angry riot grrrl gesture.

“Living in a Cat” has a lot of spacey feelings that actually feel quite earthly - and rattle fantastically in the car as well as in the UFO.