So I miss one week of music reviewing and somehow it’s a full month before I get around to another. Oops. Well it’s a good thing I have some new(ish) material to introduce you to. Now, thus far I have been reviewing music in English, but my love of rock and metal extends into foreign realms too and none more so than the heavy metal maestros of Germany. You’ve probably heard a bit about Rammstein, but this week I want to let you get to know their progenitors, the source of all that industrial instrumentation and scandalous song-writing, a powerful three man band by the name of Oomph! In the 32 years since their formation in 1989, they have produced 13 studio albums, opened for big name headliners like Metallica, Marilyn Manson, and HIM (I have no idea how I would’ve survived that last combo if I’d been there), and never once have they changed their central line up. They also pioneered the Neue Deutsche Härte movement (otherwise known as New German Hardness or dance-metal), a name which wasn’t coined until Rammstein’s Herzeleid album in 1995.
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(right) Frank Schwichtenberg, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
And so, it would seem appropriate, wouldn’t it, for
me to review one of their earlier 90s albums? But no, that honour will be going
to their 2008 album Monster for two very good reasons: 1. Of the three
albums I bought, this one didn’t have as much attraction for me, so I want to
learn to love it, as I did with Korn’s The Nothing back in January, and
2. ‘Labyrinth’, the most successful single from this album, is the reason I started
listening in the first place. And listen I did because it seemed like nothing I
had ever heard before. Even the vampiric grace of Blutengel’s Chris Pohl couldn’t prepare
me for what Oomph!’s vocalist Dero
Goi could do to my ears (or my heart! Just look at him!)
Opening track ‘Beim ersten Mal tut’s immer weh‘ (The First Time Always Hurts) is very much a sneaky jump scare with Andreas
Crap’s driving guitar and a drum beat that sets the tone for almost the whole
album. The slightly robotic vocals of the verses, however, are just one facet
of Dero’s repertoire, for now a rapid, deep intonation in a song which cheekily
makes you think it’s about sex when really heartbreak is all that’s on the menu.
‘Labyrinth’, by contrast, could be a slightly
sinister song about being stuck in one’s own mind, but a few translations
(including the English version, which I could only listen to once – the original
is far better) have taught me there’s something more perverse going on here. It’s
strange what a little perspective can do. But nonetheless it is a beautiful song,
full of piano-style synths, electric guitar vibrance, and plenty of creepy
Manson-like backing vocals, not to mention the Alice in Wonderland-themed music video with Dero in the starring role of the truly psychotic Hatter.
‘6 Fuß
Tiefer’ (6 Feet Deeper) allows you some reprieve from the usual weight –
without losing any of the theatricality – especially regarding Dero’s vocals
which take on a velvet purr, alongside the palpable bass and one hell of an
epic guitar solo. This is undoubtedly one of my favourites – followed by the much
less memorable ‘Wer schön sein will
muss leiden’ (Whoever wants to be beautiful must suffer).
Apparently in reference to the phrase ‘Beauty knows no pain’, this track again slips
in some suggestive lines while the theme of children is never far away as a
creepy little girl asks her ‘Großmutter’ how she is still so young. Her answer is that she sold her soul to stay
beautiful forever (Evil Queen from Snow White much?). The instrumentation is
suitably theatrical and haunting, but the next track ‘Sandmann’ again steals the
show (check out the music video too).
This one has a fairy-tale feel, being about the infamous
Sandman (though quite darkly also about how class divides starve German children),
and has all the energy that ‘Labyrinth’ did – a real electronic slammer – with
an enchanting lullaby pre-chorus that I would love Dero to sing to me. It
almost catches you out again when ‘Die Leiter’ (The Ladder) comes creeping in,
giving off distinctly Rammstein-influencing vibes with sinister, metallic synth
and strings, heavy drum and bass, and deeper, rawer vocals – and another killer
guitar solo! – before slinking off again. In its place comes the beautifully classic
‘Lass mich raus’ (Let Me Out) full of such sweet guitars, bass vibration, and Dero’s now
husky vocals that I could never have guessed this song was written from the
perspective of an unborn child (Dero, where is your mind at?)
‘Revolution’, however, has nothing to hide, being synth-heavy
and with a hint of Marilyn Manson’s rebelliousness to make it almost anthemic, emboldening
you with the belief that yes, ‘du hast die Macht’ (you have the
power). So it’s a little disorientating to again hit the brakes with the sad gentleness
of ‘Auf Kurs’ (On Course), at least initially; this one builds spectacularly from a subtle
piano and violin intro to a soaring ballad of strings by the chorus with Dero’s
vocals taking on new and shiver-inducing resonance. And then, just like that,
the attitude is back for ‘Bis zum schloss’ (Until the End) with eerie synths, gorgeously blended backing
vocals and a rock steady beat which creates an unremarkable but enjoyable song,
pierced with Dero’s occasionally raw growls.
‘In deinen Hüften’ (In Your Hips) is another song which stole my heart with its electric
tango fusion, its hard and fast guitar notes, and its ever-rich vocals. I
carefully side-step the undertones of STDs because hey, why ruin a good song? When
I really think about it, this one is no more remarkable than ‘Bis zum Schloss’ but it’s for all the
above reasons that it stands out. Much as ‘Wach Auf!’ does for being
perhaps the most Rammstein-like of all the songs on this album: stabbing guitars,
sinister synths and exceedingly gritty vocals with just a little reprieve in an
eerie pre-chorus vocal echo (Einatmen
– ausatmen / Breathe in –
breathe out). Things quiet down again a little for ‘Gebor’n zu sterben’ (Born to die) with a
stripped back intro of acoustic guitar which steps up to electric, a slow drum
beat and a skeletal little glockenspiel, before the theatricality of the chorus
spills out with trumpets and a gorgeous yet short guitar solo. But by the end,
you definitely need a final dose of something gentler: ‘Brich aus’ (Break Out) gives
you classic electric guitar licks, drumbeats, and Dero’s velvety vocals, so soft
against the instrumental weight – shattered only when he decides to scream the
title.
I think from all of this you can gather that I’ve
developed another foreign crush (as if Ville Valo and his sultry Finnish charm
wasn’t enough) but this band know how to make an impression even without
melting a few hearts. This album is a rollercoaster of heavy metal, dance and
lullaby that I was somewhat reluctant to get off of, and it has rightly earned
them a place in the influential Hall of Fame. There are many songs which make
their 2004 album Wahrheit oder Pflicht considerably superior to this (just
listen to ‘Sex hat keine macht’ or ‘Dein Weg’), but this was an exercise in
learning to love what I previously did not and I think I have succeeded.
FULL ALBUM (with translations): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu12mucz_9TuKpHZXwsn2wBExUmZPZ0cC
All additional info taken from Oomph's Wikipedia page and related album pages.
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