Words by: Courtney Stark
Out 30 January, 2026
Via Long Branch Records
Hannover-based trio, The Hirsch Effekt, have carved out a reputation in the German music scene that draws on elusiveness, unpredictability and dedicated audiences of Prog with a high degree of musical ambition and classical technicality. Take cellos weaving through classical guitars and progressive metal storms that give a subtle nod to the overloads of progressive metal (think Opeth, Vola and Evergrey) and The Hirsch Effekt’s 7th album Der Brauch (The Custom in English), is the end result.
The Hirsch Effekt has recently toured Germany with other progressive metal giants including Australia’s very own Caligula’s Horse, who opened for Opeth in November last year at the Sydney Opera House. The Hannover-based trio are nothing short of alchemists of sound. Moritz Schmidt’s relentless blast beats drive the chaos, giving tracks like Das Seil a crushing weight that lands with physical force in the song’s final moments, while the band offsets it with moments of delicate intricacy, as in Der Doppelgänger. It’s this tension between brutal heaviness and subtle beauty that makes The Hirsch Effect impossible to pin down, turning every song into an experience you don’t just hear, but feel wholly.
Der Doppelgänger is a total six minutes and forty-two seconds of melodies and shifting dynamics that serve as an intimate counterweight to the crushing weight of Das Seil, culminating in a bated-breath crescendo during its final ninety seconds before fading out seamlessly like thick Marlborough gold smoke clearing for fresh air.
Der Brauch gives prog listeners exactly what they’re trained for: tracks that swing between devastation and delicacy, each turn brimming with relentless imagination and the thrill of the unexpected.
