Die Krupps – Stahlwerkrequiem

Bureau B

Die Krupps - Stahlwerk RequiemThat bass is über meaty on the first track, steroid-injected, heavy on the recoil as a heavenly bounty of guitars burn up around it with Makoto intensity. A wow of toasty angles, quiver-toked in flinty sparks that curve-claw at the dark. This is just brilliant, clanking metallics and all, gathering in claustrophobic waves of pure joy and exploding contours. Wah-faring frets flying, mangled, percussively dancing that solid bass continuum in fiery tongues. A very heady 23 minutes to be savoured.

Back in ’81, this Düsseldorf band released the ultimate industrial homage in the form of a Steelworks Symphony, a monolithic shindig of metal, guitar and saxophone. Now, some 35 years later the Die Kruppsians have revisited their fallen fruit, this time enlisting the help of a whole bunch of extra talent in a supergroup consisting of Jean-Hervé Péron and Zappi Diermaier from Faust, Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, the The Pyrolator and Scott Telles. An impressive line up that burns aplenty.

That rattling fence shiver-fishing in a tracery of falling diamonds. The chloraseptic hum of motor tools that roar off at the 15 minute mark in a manic spin-cycle to breed more fanciful fractures and chord-fed motoriks. The stratospheric shoots, that fall in malfunctioning futurisms for The Pyrolator’s synth to bubble-wrap and nocturne away. What a journey!

The second track is shorter (at 13 minutes 23), but no less intense as the cymbal kiss ushers in a drum-hungry Zappi and that bassy foundation breeds some lovely post-punk fuckery. Rich pickings indeed that land themselves into some groovesome wig-outs, and have got me scouring Discogs in search of its original inspiration.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-

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