Title: Schrekk & Grauss
Artist: :Wumpscut:
Genre: EBM
Release Date: 22nd April 2011
Label: Betonkopf Media / Soulfood
Album Review
Once upon a time - around the mid 90s - :WUMPSCUT: was the leading Dark Electro / EBM act. 'Soylent Green' from the debut album was (and is) a massive club hit on all dark dance floors and kick started the career of Rudy Ratzinger's project. The albums 'Music For A Slaughtering Tribe' (1993), 'Bunkertor 7' (1995) and 'Embryodead' (1997) are still must-haves for any EBM & Goth fan. :WUMPSCUT:'s profile hasn't been as high as it once used to be for quite a while now. While still getting good reviews and considerable media attention (well, in alternative music media at least), the quantity (one album per year since 1998) does not much the level of quality any more. In fact, even when albums like 'Wreath Of Barbs' (2001) or 'Evoke' (2005) had their moments we basically witnessed the decline of the once big and mighty :WUMPSCUT: which is today nowhere near the old glories.
The new album 'Schrekk & Grauss' just confirms this. The typical :WUMPSCUT: ingredients are all there: The distorted vocals, the heavy beats, the weird and creepy atmosphere, the sweet melodies contrasted by noisy beats. 'Schrekk & Grauss' is decidedly more mid-tempo than previous efforts and does have its moments too, like the dark ambient 'Muselmann' or the album's title track. But while 'Schrekk & Grauss' is certainly well produced you wonder most of the time “What was Rudy Ratzinger thinking?”. This guy does have a very, erm…, special sense of humour but a track like 'Kikeriki' is a very bad joke and nothing which would deserve to be an album! 'Jiddisch Is A Zwillink' could be a nice track if it wasn't for the endlessly looped vocal sample. Same for 'Elende Buben' which repeats the song title until you wanna skip the track. 'Patient A' is a nice sound collage and is clearly a cut & paste report about the physical and mental health status of Adolf Hitler. This, the artwork, the lyrics of 'Muselmann' or 'Rudolf Wolzek' (apparently about SS member Rudolf Höß and his reports about the non-existent KZ Wolzek) makes you really ask yourself what Rudy Ratzinger is aiming at with his new :WUMPSCUT: release?
Perhaps that's what you get when a solo artist works for years in his own nutshell with hardly any artistic input from outside. However, after years of going downhill, : WUMPSCUT: seems now to hit rock-bottom and to be digging its own grave finally with this new release. The title of the album closer, 'Alles Aus' (Everything's Over), might have a certain prophetic quality in regard to this, even though it's one of the few decent tracks on 'Schrekk & Grauss'. But a few decent tracks do not make a good album, especially when some of the other tracks are nothing but silly and even nerve-wrecking. In a series of mediocre releases, 'Schrekk & Grauss' is probably the worst so far. This album is also available on vinyl and as a “Schrekkbox” which hardly leaves anything to desire for the hardcore fan. The box set includes an additional CD with remixes, a shirt, a poster, a postcard, a sticker, a spray-on plate made from V2A steel, 0.5kg gross block / 350g net shape and more crazy stuff. But the standard edition is already for die-hard fans only. Everybody else should move on. Most likely they already did so, anyway.
Tracklist
01. Rudolf Wolzek
02. Schrekk & Grauss
03. Muselmann
04. Elende Buben
05. Patient A.
06. Jiddisch Is A Zwillink
07. Wumpelstilz
08. Kikeriki
09. Zombibikini
10. Alles Aus
Line-up
Rudy Ratzinger
Website
www.wumpscut.com
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 3
Sound: 9
Extras: 10
Total: 7 / 10 (just for the Extras and Sound)
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