“One cannot simply ignore subgenre explosion in music” – anyone looking for music on the web. Nowadays, classic genres and main methods of categorizing Metal music like “Heavy Metal” and “Death Metal” cannot fully describe the music, therefore as a solution, bands and fans now assign multiple genres to music, and sometimes it can get messy. Subgenres like “Stoner Rock”, “Technical Death Metal”, “Nature Black Metal” got so familiar now that one cannot resort to their default origins like “Rock”, “Death Metal” and “Black Metal” without sounding vague and unclear.

In recent years, many bands began using the “Psychedelic / Stoner / Kraut” label, which almost always meant the music had a dirty distortion sound from Sludge Metal and was more or less experimental with a psychedelic cult-like haze vibe (stoner, dude). But what the hell is “Kraut”? Check the picture below:

Sauerkraut – delicious … yup

“Sauerkraut” is quite known in Germany, and I personally am accustomed to it with main courses having meat/turkey/pork/bacon/etc… Apparently, after some quick research, Kraut was used in World War 1 and 2 as a disrespectful word used to describe German soldiers. In addition, Krautrock was used in Germany in the late 60’s and early 70s to describe German bands whose influences range from psychedelic rock, avant-garde, electronic and minimalism to name a few.

Some famous Krautrock for y’all

  • Gomorrha – “Gomorrha” (1969)
  • Faust – “Faust” (1971)

A couple of modern ones

  • Het! – “Dolorosa” (2012)
  • Camera – “Radiate!” (2012)

So here you go, now you know what the hell Kraut is!