DAS ICH
CABARET

ALBUM MASSACRE, METROPOLIS RELEASE: MARCH 31, APRIL 25 (USA), 2006 REVIEW: APRIL 22, 2006


Listening to a new Das Ich album is much like seeing an old, familiar face around your dinner table or down the pub, whichever suits you. The effect is much the same. You ask questions, you wonder how they've been since you last saw them. Everyone laughs at how little everyone has changed.

Then they begin to answer you. "Cabaret" is a journey through the darker regions of the human mind with numerous detours into lurid fixations, twisted saudade, nihilistic relationships with one's own psyche and along the way, some deliciously fucked up dancefloor missives.

Once the first percussive jackhammer clotheslines you in "Moritat", it's over. You have no choice but to let "Cabaret" play out. "Macht" clearly shows the menacing persona of Das Ich. This band is larger than life. They are no longer just releasing albums. They are decisively showing that they are indeed, artists, in the truest sense of the word.

This is a much cleaner sounding album than "Lava" was. If it bears any resemblance to what they've done in the past, it is only because of how unique their sound is. I mean really, who the hell sounds like Das Ich but Das Ich? Nobody else out there is working in even the same vein as Kramm and Ackermann are.

People seem to have forgotten this band (especially here in the US) ever since "Egodram". They are no longer the press darlings that everyone wants to know everything about. And it's just as well given the fickle and pathetic state of things in the "scene" these days. There's no magazine backing them, no duplicitous label aligned with the press over-stating their abilities. There is only the music. And that is what matters.

Das Ich continue to do what they do best: put out music that is both challenging and unconventional without slipping into self-parody. That's one hell of a tightrope to walk but I can think of no other duo more suited for it. Aces again, boys.

PETER MARKS

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