Now, Eisschock is a bit of an unusual EBM project in that the sole member is a self-trained psychologist and also a woman. It’s not that women making music is weird, mind you, but it’s definitely a rarity in the EBM scene. What makes Eisschock even more worth having a look at is that the music is pretty good as well. Sure, it has issues and it’s not anything totally revolutionary, but it’s got a bit of a different touch than most testosterone-driven bursts of hate and anger most EBM bands tend to be.

Therapie (released in 2006) is thus far the only record by Eisschock. The music here is mostly very old-school EBM, and there’s also a couple of softer, more synthpop-like tracks thrown into the mix as well. To each their own, but I find the mellower material on Therapie downright embarrassing when compared to the vastly superior EBM cuts. There’s a number of goofy or just bad choices of sounds, run-of-the-mill compositions and it doesn’t help that the singer’s voice just doesn’t work that well when actually singing either. On the other hand, the aggressive EBM tracks are really great, incredibly old-school and the sounds are also suitably cold and clean, with the singer whispering menacingly on top of the deep bass lines and hard percussions.

Therapie is NOT a bad record, no. On the contrary, there’s a number of wonderful ideas and some extremely strong songs like the opener Sag Mir Nicht and Panic Attack. However, it’s a real shame that about half of the album falls into the category of mediocre synth-pop that’s almost hard to listen to after the awesome faster tracks. Alright, alright, debut albums are very rarely great as a whole, but Eisschock’s first is just so promising that it’s frustrating it’s not any better. I believe that if our psychologist focuses more on her stronger aspects the next time around, she might just blow our minds. Definitely check Therapie out if you dig old-school EBM like Nitzer Ebb or Front 242, or if you’re craving for a slightly different take on an otherwise somewhat stagnant genre. It’s surely not perfect, but makes you want to hear just what Eisschock is capable of.

You can listen to samples of each song on Eisschock’s site, and you can also buy the album there.

Eisschock - Therapie tracklisting
01. Sag Mir Nicht
02. Loveseeker
03. Sex Sells
04. P.B.
05. Nameless
06. Stupide
07. Panic Attack
08. Our Party
09. Narcissism
10. In Deinem Kopf