SCHANZ – From The Attic (2026)
For over twenty years, German singer, songwriter, and guitarist Björn Schanz has been half of the synth-pop duo Pitch Black Inc (which released their most recent album in November of 2025). But starting in 2025, Schanz began a solo project called, funny enough, SCHANZ, releasing the seven-song album, AD/2.
Now SCHANZ has released a second full-length album, From the Attic, which continues to explore guitar-heavy music influenced by diverse artists and bands such as Neil Young and The Cure. And like The Cure, much of the material here is dark, fanciful, and impassioned, attributes that SCHANZ’s deep voice amplifies his lower register. This dark whispering quality contrasts with the air of menace he creates when singing in his upper register.
From the Attic is a heavy album. SCHANZ may have shed synths for guitars as the foundation of his music, but his songs still revel in the dark corners of the attic from which it comes. “At the attic/ Something’s hidden in the shades,” he sings in ‘A Shadow from the Attic’. “How dramatic/ It’s floating through the walls and through the doors/ Not to scare but to share some deepful thoughts.”
This could be the album’s thesis statement. SCHANZ’s songs bring up ghosts, dictatorial societies, ailments like dementia, and his love of the gothic scene, which he resonated with in the 1990s. Scary images cast long shadows in black and white, but after a moment, they are hardly worth shivering over.
‘Cold’ opens the album with a plaintive guitar hook under wailing sirens and unveils a society frozen in the grips of a system that selects the best and discards the rest. “They built these walls brick by brick/ As high and wide as you can see/ For the disgraced, the uneducated/ For those with disabilities”, SCHANZ sings in the opening lines.
From the Attic is not a concept album, but many of the songs feel like they portray life inside the walls of some kind of prison. The spirit in ‘A Shadow from the Attic’ is trapped, like the person experiencing dementia in ‘When Only Memories Remain’, which opens with a piano line that sounds as if it were recorded in a large, empty room. ‘Waiting’ offers a more diverse sonic palette as SCHANZ plays delicate lines with a clean guitar sound, but a feeling of futility hangs over it. “In the darkest corner of your own little world,” he sings, “No one’s [sic] there to carry you, to keep you safe.” He carries this feeling of futility into ‘It’s Gettin’ Dark’, a song that portrays our own time as a recurrence of dark trials, but he punctures it with a choice. “Do you turn around and run away/ Or will you raise your hand against these lunatics?”
SCHANZ’s attempt to do a happy, positive song fails, at his own admission. “A perfect day/ Even when I dream I don’t know how to make/ A perfect day/ Behind reflections of a smile hides a lie.” – well, that’s a cheerful thought. All the same, there’s something benign about SCHANZ, as if you’re listening to the melancholy thoughts of someone who may otherwise be a happy, well-adjusted person.
From the Attic feels more like a purge than a place to grovel. It’s an album that delves into the dark stuff to cleanse itself. And if the musical tone doesn’t quite accommodate the transformation, the thought is still there.
Find out more about SCHANZ on his official website, Facebook, X, Instagram, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify.
