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Archived Reviews
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Wumpscut's recent releases have both received very mixed response with many diehard fans complaining that the lack of powerful, hard tracks were not really in keeping with the Wumpscut legacy. With the lacklustre Bonepeeler I was in full agreement with such opinions although Evoke won me over due to the music's increasingly atmospheric & evocative, something that has been carried over to this latest release & while the opening "Herzliche Wilkommen" is so short as to be hardly worth mentioning the rhythms that grace such slower tracks as "Cannibal Anthem" (where Marco Meyendriesch's guitar plays an important role) do make for an almost ritualistic mood & while there are a number of promisingly evocative elements gracing "Ohne Dich" & the closing "Recht Vor Gnade" the fact that they rely so heavily on one particular theme & do little to expand upon the initial premise mean that this potential is never fully fullfilled although the former piece does manage to overcome this setback to be a decent slice of mood music, in direct contrast to the annoyingly repetitive "Hunger" which even Onca's evocative vocals can't save! In contrast, "Wir Warten" should soothe the nerves of those who enjoyed the older works, boasting a good, if slightly repetitive theme (a consistent feature of this album) while the rhythms gradually gain intensity, ending on an almost brutal note & thus going some way to matching the hardcore artwork. Likewise "Jesus Antichristus" proved to be a good choice for preceeding single, being both powerful & infectious, despite residing at the poppier end of Rudy's style. In a way it's probably a tad unfair to say that this would be more than acceptable from many artists & to compare this with earlier Wumpscut releases but they were such classics that it's virtually impossible not to feel that Rudy hardly seems to be stretching himself nowadays with the result that, while this is not a bad album at all, he is capable of so much more, something he has proved so often in the past. |
