Opening the Schädlingsbox
Last friday I picked up a large parcel from my local post office. Guess what it contained?
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Yep, the limited box edition of the electro-industrial legend :Wumpscut:’s record for 2008. It was one of those “well, why the hell not”, spur-of-the-moment impulse buys, the first :W: box I’ve bought. What wonders could await inside?
Find out just what, a review of the album and more behind the link!
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Ooh, how exciting! But what is all this stuff?
1. Limited 1st Edition Schädling + remix CD in a DVD-size case
2. That’s the stylish cardboard box where all this was hidden.
3. 100 x 120 cm flag (still wrapped)
4. A1 poster (folded at this point)
5. Lanyard - I have absolutely no use for this.
6. The box says card, but it’s more like a flyer.
7. That’s a Wumpscut fridge magnet right there! AWESOME. No, it seriously is.
8. Sticker
9. This is some silly A4 with a :Wumpscut: catalog on the other side.
10. Another poster? It seems to be A1 like the first one, and it also looks very alike when it’s still folded like this.
11. Schädling XL poloshirt (still wrapped)
So that’s that, let’s start digging into this stuff, then.
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Here are the two size A1 posters in all their glory. The second poster is actually the calendar the box promised, but I was waiting for a “real” calendar, not just another poster with the months on it… Oh well. They’re both very good-looking though, and I’ll have them on my wall, but the calendar was a bit of a letdown.
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I was interested in the flag in advance, and it delivers! There’s my copy of the Cannibal Anthem CD on the left so you can get an idea of the size of this thing. Insanely cool and imposing design, I love it.
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Here’s the rest of the stuff except for the A4 which I forgot. The shirt is a polo shirt, which is a nice deviation from the basic t-shirt bands usually sell. The shirt is very nice, it’s a soft and comfy 100 % cotton shirt, and the minimal design makes it actually wearable in public as well. The fridge magnet is also great, it’s weighty and sturdy and very much awesome. I have no idea what to do with the lanyard and the card, because I don’t use lanyards and the card is basically a flyer and there’s no space to write in anyways.
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Here’s Schädling itself. In Schädlingsbox the album comes packed in an SACD package which is the size of a DVD, so good luck fitting this in your CD tower or wherever you keep your records. The remix CD is on the other side of the flip tray that I’m holding aloft in the picture on the right. The booklet is pretty cool, with some sort parchment-type covers and the actual booklet inside.
There you have it. For information on the track listing, samples and where to get Schädlingsbox, see Greg’s newspost here. There’s only 1515 of these, but many stores still have some of the older boxes as well, so I don’t think you’re in a hurry to get this one either. If you fancy some of the fan swag presented here but don’t want to go the whole hog, it seems there was some overproduction of some of the components and now :Wumpscut:’s web shop has the flag, the poster, the shirt (XL only), the lanyard and the special polybook CD for sale separately in very limited numbers. If nothing else, get at least the flag, because it’s awesome.
All in all, Schädlingsbox is full of value. Everything except the calendar (which is still disappointing) reeks of quality and looks and feels great, and would definitely cost more if you were to get all of it separately. It’s a great way to cater to fans, and :Wumpscut: has its fair share of them. I’ll be getting some of the older boxes when I can, I really liked this one. But what about the most important thing, the album itself?
Quick review:
Guess what? Rudy’s offering for 2008 is pretty good. Last year’s celebration of mediocrity, also known as Body Census, certainly had its moments, but it wasn’t exactly the best thing since sliced bread. Schädling isn’t either, but it is definitely a step forward. It is more brutal and evil than the cheery and at times humorous Body Census, and the songs are simply put a lot better. Schädling does have some dull moments like Spuuk (Now Is Over) or Nest, but most of it is way above average, like the aggressive club piece Rifki, the ominous Oh How It Feels or Schäbiger Lump, which is just disturbing. Voodoo Void also incorporates some surprising orchestral elements which work really well. Hard to Bear and Break the Seal continue the tradition of beautiful :W: instrumentals, fitting the album nicely. In fact, I’d say Schädling is the best stuff since Wreath of Barbs, beating Cannibal Anthem narrowly.
I know many of you don’t think much of Rudy’s latest works, but I believe it’s mostly because he doesn’t even want to sound like his early works anymore. He’s moved on, and that is justified, because no musician should ever need to repeat him or her ad infinitum and ad nauseam just to please someone. Do you really want to buy the same album again and again? Schädling is as a whole a really good record, it is cold, dark and comfortless and also a very complete and interesting album. Give it a try, you might like it if you listened to it a couple of times. I guess we’ll be seeing if Rudy is able to keep up the quality next April, if he’s going to continue at the same pace as before.
How did you find this sort of extravaganza of an article, would you like to see more stuff like this on Germaniac? Do you want to have your say on :Wumpscut:’s present state? The stage is yours, comment!
April 7th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I dunno if this’d work for regular albums, but most certainly for these lmtd edition albums et al it’s really pretty interesting. I’m not much of a :W: fan, but were I it’d be great to know exactly what would come with this deluxe release. I’m all for more like this!
April 7th, 2008 at 4:51 am
I think :W: makes way too many editions of each album, it simply is crazy, not counting the re-releases, I’m very glad not to be a :W: collector; my bank account would be in a terrible state. However, among the XX number of editions of each album, the boxset seems to be worth it for fans.
As of Rudy’s new stuff, I don’t have anything against it, I agree that as an artist he has all rights in the world to try out new stuff if he feels like it, and I respect the will not to sound the same. I think all the recent albums are fairly good. They all contain some boring tracks, but also some good ones. I personally like Evoke a lot. Of course, it’s nothing like Böses Junges Fleisch, but hey, if you want something like Böses Junges Fleisch or Bunkertot 7, why not simply listen to these very CDs!
April 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thank you for your comments. I just thought something like this would be fun to do for me and fun to read for you. If there’s a chance to do something like this again with some other new release, I’m definitely up for it!
Yeah, I think Rudy’s recent works have been pretty good as well. Bone Peeler, which many people see as the root of all evil in the world, isn’t really THAT bad, it’s just that it’s not very interesting after something like track four. It just drags on an on. Body Census wasn’t very interesting either, even though there are some very good tracks there as well (Remember One Thing is actually one of my all-time favourite :W: tracks). I like Evoke too, I have no idea why so many people disregard it. Sure, it’s not very harsh or something people might expect from Rudy, but it’s a great album nonetheless and maybe even because of that. Change is always good in music, if it’s something the artist/s really want to do.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[…] next April, if he’s going to continue at the same pace as before“, said I last March in my review of Wumpscut’s 2008 album Schädling. And indeed, that’s exactly what will happen, […]