A god once told me that we’d have to start a war for the future of music – a nuclear war. I didn’t believe him and it’s probably because I missed all the warning shots. I was only months old when the PMRC spewed their bullshit forth from the Capital. In 1995, Headbangers Ball was canceled. I was only ten, clutching on to a Buddy Holly mix tape, and I had no idea what MTV was truly capable of. In my teens, I defended Metallica at the dinner table when my uncle said they were a bunch of brainless stooges. Just a bunch of kids who had no idea what was going on. (Despite James and the gang being in their late 30s at the time.) Whenever I tried to bring people to the place music had taken me, my wings got clipped. The war was over. The local rock station got turned to talk radio.
I met Greg my first semester at college. At that point, my idea of foreign music was Led Zeppelin. I was a big fan of Filter and Nine Inch Nails, but that’s as far as I explored into industrial. The closest thing to gothic metal I could imagine was The Misfits. That was five years ago. While I’ve expanded my tastes considerably since, I’m still, in a lot of ways, that same kid. If you asked me to give my opinion on European music, I’d stand on Greg’s bed and belt out a few lines of Laibach’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” The only German music I’ve heard is either played at the local Oktoberfest or Rammstein. So, yeah – it’s odd that I decided to contribute to a blog called Germaniac.
My goal here is to provide a bridge between the Germaniacs of the world and the casual, American music fans like myself. In all the time I’ve known Greg, I’ve never really sought out this music on my own. So, I asked for a list of three bands a week. I’d listen to them and see what I could make of what I was hearing. Greg decided to start me off with a band called Umbra Et Imago. Their Wikipedia entry was suspiciously bare, so all I had to go by was their music.
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Mea Culpa was all right, I guess. By the end of the album, I was struggling to get through it. I can’t see any non-fan sticking it out for the cover of “Rock Me Amadeus,” although I was glad I did. That song is disturbingly awesome. Things improved slightly with Dunkle Energie. Or maybe I was just getting used to Umbra’s style. Also, I think this is a good time to mention that German bands singing in English scares the crap out of me. I don’t mind the (apparently) time honored tradition of the token broad singing in English behind the German screaming, but count me out when the vocalist wants to whisper sweet, English nothings in my ear. Either way, Dunkle was definitely enough to keep me listening for another album.
Memento Mori sold me. I’m a huge movie dork, so I giggled about the name as I listened to the first few tracks. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’d call German an abrasive language, but I don’t really think of it as musical. Granted, Rammstein has been changing my opinion with every album. But I’m not fully there. Yet. I can definitely see how people get embraced by the vocals even when they don’t know what the hell the guy is rambling about. Maerchenland is a hell of a track. And Sagt Nein fucking rocks. While I was expecting a Pink Floyd cover with “Money,” I was still pleased with the track I got. All in all, that’s one CD I’m not about to toss out when I’m done writing this column.
Although I’ve got no idea what any of this says, I’m going to take a leap and guess that Motus Animi is a remix album. It sounds like all of the songs I just heard being played upstairs from a techno club in an early 90s action movie. After Mori, I skipped through a few of the tracks. I gave a listen to Ein Letztes Mal (Leaves Eyes Remix) and liked it. The Lieber Gott remix sounds like someone had been playing a little too much Goldeneye lately. Wumpscut scares me enough to keep me away from their stuff for at least another month. The practical uses of this remix album includes clearing out wedding reception halls and announcing a depth charge warning to the crew. I like techno, but I’d stick to Dunkle and Mori.
Seriously though, Umbra Et Imago is controversial gothic metal? If I didn’t know any better, I could hear a few of those songs being played on the local (now no longer talk) rock station. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Umbra is the next Van Halen, but they definitely deserve some play. And when you’ve got the choice between Fergalicious and something that rocks, it really doesn’t matter what language it’s in. Finally, don’t mention the goth part to anyone you pass this along to. While I don’t think the lyrics are about kittens, it’s not the crap I’ve come to accept as goth metal. I’m definitely going to fire off a few samples to friendly metal heads. Or at least anyone that’d put the umlaut in Motörhead.
Bottom line: If this is the Devil’s music then I am here to do the Devil’s work.
