Sweat pushes out of your pores, electric guitars drag your legs onto the dance floor, full heads run empty – and you also think your own chest hair is growing faster than the maximum speed allowed. Clearly, what’s pumping out of the speakers is pure sex. Hard rock, heavy metal and glam make a baby – and there it is: Hello, Formosa!
Formosa, three young men, who have been on stage together since they went to school in Lake Constance, have now landed in Essen in the Ruhr area, is a band that is not ashamed of nudity. Anyone who attends one of the concerts by Nik Bird, Nik Beer and Paris J. will quickly notice that, but those who don’t do so will not be threatened with a gap in knowledge, because you can also hear that nudity. Please what?
That’s right, Formosa have their music, they call it “Hard and Heavy” themselves, undressed, very slowly, with kisses on the neck, oaths of love and all the trimmings. And while similar groups often have the motto: higher, more pompous, glaring, Formosa reflect back on their natural state, which is: an electric guitar, a bass, a drum set, music in a loincloth, so to speak. Already on the first two albums “Tight & Sexy” (2016) and “Sorry for Being Sexy” (2018) the group showed that they can build a catchy palace with few resources, that the reduction is the greatest thing about their songs is. With a love of detail, Formosa layers snare on snare, riff on riff, there is enough space, even a separate stage for the unusual pop hooks, which return so reliably in Formosa’s sing-along memory game that you are guaranteed to be able to shout them three or four times. Physical deterioration is sometimes celebrated through beer (“Fuck up your Liver!”), sometimes motorcycling without a motorcycle is conjured up (“Friends of the Night”). Anyone who likes hard music with a soft yet ironic core simply has to love it.
And, yes, the punch line works across borders. On more than 300 concerts Formosa already showed all over
Europe, from Scandinavia to the Balkans, how great ecstatic a live show by this band can be. On their tours, the band has already shared a stage with the likes of Thundermother, The New Roses” or the legendary “Nazareth”. In March 2020 the band released their third studio album “Danger Zone” (Metalville). They did it in a studio in Antwerp with Martin Furia (Vanderbuyst, Destruction) barricaded and bludgeoned their best album to date. Subsequently went on tour with Audrey Horne until the pandemic ended it prematurely. But in 2021 it works
travel further. New music is being planned and a comprehensive tour through Germany in November with the full-throttle rockers Earenfeindt. It’s about time for live music again
Rock’n’Roll!