Bolzer – Swiss extreme metal duo playing Auckland and Wellington
BØLZER [bœlˈtsr] ~ He who strikes like lightning – with sudden, decisive force or implications.
An intuitive art project born from raw passion; musical ecstasy fueled by impulsive composition and enactment. Whilst wielding a lyrical and musical medium largely inspired by and seeking to channel the primeval essence of the human experience, flashes of illumination will descend the sky from which there shall be no shelter.
Forged of an intense understanding between drummer Fabian Wyrsch and guitarist Okoi Jones, the project first took physical form in 2008. Before long, the dualistic significance of their musical partnership outshone any need for a bass player and has since served to both challenge and empower the band’s creativity. Following their 2010 live debut in Zürich, BØLZER soon made a name for themselves as the remarkable Swiss-Antipodean duo capable of conjuring up mighty barriers of sound with nothing but a ten-stringed guitar and an almost ritualistic percussion style. The pair describe their own stage experience as a form of spiritual rapture, an atavistic vortex woven together from the profound union of spectacle meeting spectator on a deeper plane.
By 2013, BØLZER had begun plying their craft on stages across most populated continents. After garnering significant underground attention with two EPs – Aura in 2013 followed by Soma the year after – BØLZER carved out their humble place in the bedrock of metal with the critically acclaimed 2016 debut album, Hero.
To further embody the conceptual disciplines of personal action and self-realization, 2019 saw the band founding their own label, Lightning & Sons, in a consciously independent effort to reorientate and indeed reevaluate their place in a shifting landscape. Resuming where the bombastic romanticism of Hero left off, a fifth offering and autonomous label debut, 2019 EP Lese Majesty rings true of its namesake, the uncompromising voice of a heretic granted contemporary audience.
2025 finds Wyrsch and Jones on the cusp of a new era within the band’s career and overall creative vision, the savage beauty of the existential stage continuing to drive and define their work. 2026 will see the release of the duo’s second long awaited full-length Rex Revenant, again via Lightning & Sons, having concluded one cycle of their journey to reemerge with the explosive passion and volatile magic they are renowned for.
20 Aug – Valhalla, Wellington
21 Aug – Whammy, Auckland
Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz
Social Media: Facebook / Instagram Music & Apparel: bolzer.bandcamp.com
