Techno-industrial KMFDM bids farewell with mediocre album
The pioneer band exits the
MUSIC SCENE QUIETLY
By Biyan Petersen
Oregon Daily Emerald
Over the last decade, we have seen more
than one era come to a dose: The Soviet
Union ceased to exist. The Berlin Wall
came down, and East Germany followed
the Soviet Union off into the sunset. Grunge
came and went. Ditto for the Macarana.
Through all of this, the pioneering German
industrial group KMFDM
has been generating its own
brand of techno-industrial,
club-friendly beats, which
have helped open the door
for such acts as Nine Inch
Nails, Marilyn Manson,
Stabbing Westward, Gravity
Kills and many others.
However, all eras must
come to an end. And after 15
years, more than a dozen al
bums and nearly twice that
17 II_I_I
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track performances, KMFDM is calling it quits.
KMFDM began in 19B4, when founders
Sascha Konietzko and En Esch were hired to
make “music” for a Paris art exhibit utilizing
industrial components. Afterward, the duo re
cruited a rotating family of musicians and be
came a real band, which combined heavy gui
tars with pulsing, bass-heavy rhythms and
moody synthesizers. In 1989, the band relo
cated to Chicago, where it became heavily in
fluenced by the local house/techno scene.
Throughout the ’90s, KMFDM has been
consistent with its sounds, sticking with lay
ered synths, chunky riffs and angry vocals in
both German and English. While KMFDM has
not been strikingly original as far as the evolu
tion of its music is concerned, opting to keep
creating “club music to mosh to,” the band has
been interesting as far as its image goes.
The grimly intense, hyperactive, psychedel
ic animation which appears on all of the band’s
album covers, most of its t-shirts and several of
r
its videos, is often more fun than the music.
And the group’s name has been a bit of an
enigma: For years, the prevailing rumor
among fans was that it stood for “Kill Moth
er Fu-ing Depeche Mode,” although that
has never been verified.
Although KMFDM has called it quits, the
band has left us with a farewell album, aptly
titled “Adios.”No subtlety there.
“ Adios” doesn’t rank very high on the all
time list of swan song releases.
The soul of KMFDM remains intact: Koni
etzko’s programming and vocals are solid, and
longtime guitar player Gunter Schulz’s heavy
Artist KMFDM
Genre: Techno-industrial
Score: ★★★★★
nns remain over the top.
And the special guests who
contribute to the release are
from the upper-echelon of
industrial/avant-weird mu
sicians, with Ministry’s
William Reiflin, Skinny
Puppy’s Ogre and legendary
art-punk diva Nina Hagen all
contributing their respective
talents to the mix.
With all of this going on,
fllO olKnm
should be better than it actually is.
The beats are there, that’s for sure. But the
band’s method of throwing together heavy
industrial music with acid-house-influ
enced techno seems to merely detract from
both genres. KMFDM has the ability to go
all the way and make a great acid-house al
bum, with rewed-up diva vocals and in
your-face-keyboards. Or the band could go
the other way and put out really heavy, dark
industrial music. But the attempt to com
bine the two falls a bit flat.
That’s not to say there is nothing good about
the release. On tracks where the gritty vocals
are moved back and the music comes through,
like the ethereal “Today” or the drum-and
bass-meets-dub “Sycophant,” KMFDM’s po
tential for excellence shines forth.
Indeed, it is often the lyrics and vocals that
take the cool right out of some of the tracks.
“Witness” should be cool because Nina Ha
gen helped write it, but instead it is a bunch
of drivel about alien abductions: “They are
_ Courtesy photo
The German band KMFDM has made it through 15 years and more than a dozen albums before bowing out.
visiting us for their genetic testing /1 don’t
think it’s such a blessing / but then again
how can I know /1 must not judge too much /
You know.” This might have been cool a few
years ago, but now comes across as jumping
on the alien bandwagon.
All in all, KMFDM has not made a bad al
bum as far as “Adios” goes. It’s great party
music, great forgetting the mood a bit more
aggro when that’s the prescription. But in
the end, it’s simply another KMFDM album
— one that does not stand apart from any
previous release.
The ban d would have been better off taking a
more challenging way to exit the music scene,
leaving it the way they entered it: as pioneers.
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ZB Oregon Daily Emerald Friday, May 21,1999
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