German metallers ATROCITY are counting down the release of their new cover album, Werk 80 II, due out on February 8th in Europe and March 4th in North America via Napalm Records. Click here to hear a sample of their cover of EURYTHMICS's 'Here Comes The Rain Again'.

Frontman Alex Krull comments: "It was especially attractive to work with a presetting that it is a female voice as main vocals and I had to take this part. Because of the usage of guitars and the more invidious, male vocals, the song gets another note of course. In principle, we don't want to destroy the overall character of the songs which we perform on the WERK 80 album, but building on that, to more or less filling in our trademarks as the metal band Atrocity.

Q: On this album it was your business to unite 11 (respectively 12, if you count the bonus track) different singers, how was your approach towards that?

Alex: "It wasn't just to reduce 12 different singers to a common denominator, but also 12 different bands and their songs! It isn't an easy task, especially for a singer because every singer has his own special way to perform his songs. There are some great singers on the original, no question about that. The songs were also probably made for these specific voices. That's why I didn't try to imitate the voices of the singers but simply to work with the variety of my voice, be it hard or clean vocals. After all, it's Atrocity playing the songs. That's why there is no sense in miserable comparisons all the time. Either you like our versions or not! Sometimes you have, especially on vocals, to operate in finding an own style which means you must experiment a little bit. I made my experiences with that on the first Werk 80 session. For me personally, it was very important to have a healthy mixture of hard and clean vocals on the album. It should sound diversified, homogenous just to sound as of one piece. By the way, it would be interesting to know how those bands would play our songs instead. How would a Dave Gahan growl to 'Reich Of Phenomena'?"

The tracklist for Werk 80 II is as follows: 'People Are People' (DEPECHE MODE), 'Smalltown Boy' (BRONSKI BEAT), 'Relax' (FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD), 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' (SIMPLE MINDS), 'The Sun Always Shines On TV' (A-Ha), 'Hey Little Girl' (ICEHOUSE), 'Fade To Grey' (VISAGE), 'Such A Shame' (TALK TALK), 'Keine Heimat' (IDEAL), 'Here Comes The Rain Again' (EURYTHMICS), 'Forever Young' (ALPHAVILLE), Special Edition bonus track: 'Feels Like Heaven' (FICTION FACTORY).