ARGH!
It's hard to find something nice to say about this album. KMFDM have apparently been going now for twenty-three years. And no-one was kind enough to tell them to stop? Just to give you an idea of the experience of listening to this album, without inflicting the aural displeasure of actually listening to this album, it seems kindly to provide you with some examples.
Here are a selection of lyrics from 'Tohuvabohu;'
“Eyes on the road, one fist on the wheel/All maximum throttle, full pedal to the steel.” (Super power)
“Jetlag limbo can't decide/Like molten rock I turn to stone.” (Looking for strange)
“I am what I am/No, you can't change me.” (I Am What I Am)
Here are selection of bands that they sound like on this album;
Rogue Traders being violated by Marilyn Manson (Super Power)
Linkin Park fellating Backstreet Boys (Looking for Strange)
2 Unlimited jamming with a geriatric 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster (Tohuvabohu)
Slipknot clearing their throats (Saft Und Kraft)
Shampoo having a tantrum (Headcase)
Things get off to a bad start with 'Superpower,' a song that contains not only the words “Super Power – KMFDM ahoy!,” but 80's style noodling over sub-standard electro-beats. It can only get worse from here, it would seem. This album is the rejected soundtrack for 'The Lost Boys.' It's meant to be innovative and now, with the fusion of death metal and commercial dance (are you meant to dance or mosh?), but the reality is that there are too many bad ideas jostling for position, which prevents it from being merely bad. It's actually fucking terrible.
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It's not ageist to say that this band look too old to be singing this songs. As demonstrated above, the lyrics are no better than GCSE poetry (nay, in fact, they're worse). There's nothing new about anything on this album, apart from that they have taken a stereotypical framework from several genres and thrown them all on top of each other. None of it is done well, and it just doesn't work.
It appears to be a contrived attempt to appeal to the tweenie metal market, but this is meant to be a band well into their third decade. The word 'motherfucker' appears in 'Headcase,' which further suggests that this is meant for an adult audience. It's completely baffling. It's cheesier than the race for Christmas number one, and it's definitely taking itself seriously. It's all of those crappy Europop songs from the early nineties mixed in with all of those crappy Slipknot imitators that continue to be churned out this century.
Taken to pieces, KMFDM could have made four albums out of the material they layer on the top of each other on this release. Individually, this would make four extremely bad records. Combined, the results are catastrophic. Avoid at all costs.
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