Atrocity
Werk 80

THE REVIEW

All those who were young, beardless kids but with discerning ears already in the first half of the '80s and later became devotees of metal towards the latter half of that decade, I said maybe, in some corner more or less distant of their/our curious conscience, they/we have always wondered how it would be to revive some songs of the caliber of "Wild Boys" by Duran Duran or "Shout" by Tears for Fear in a metal version. Perhaps in a death metal version. Perhaps redone by a death metal band with the right attention to keep an 'eighty attitude alive (like "Everything Counts" by Depeche Mode redone by In Flames).

That sly fox Alex Krull, the mind and singer (let’s say screamer, that’s better...) of the German deathsters Atrocity, must have thought about it too.

And in my humble opinion, he thought about it after meeting the evil Bruno Kramm of Das Ich (producer of the album under review), and after the latter suggested that it would be very trendy to revive a golden decade for music, so tinged with Electro/pop.

That said, in 1997, Massacre Rec. released the compilation of covers titled "Werk 80", in which our beloved Germans engage in more or less plausible reinterpretations of ancient hits such as "Send me an angel", "Tainted love" (well before Reverend Manson released his version of the Soft Cell classic by Marc Almond), "Wild boys", and even "Let’s dance" by the indestructible David Bowie, not to mention the already mentioned "Shout", whose cover version was preemptively used as the lead single from the album under review.

In short, the idea is remarkable, like a perverse and wet pre-adolescent dream; the timing is just right, since the saturation of the sad and existential period that grunge brought with it is literally nauseating everyone a bit, metal is now static excluding the Korn phenomenon and related (forgive me, but I also include Sepultura’s "Roots bloody Roots" among the related, well knowing that the latter have nothing to do with what will become nu-metal), death metal is in deep crisis, thrash has been buried for ages, so what could be better than reviving the charm, the fun, the new romantic poses (that fused with a certain gothic Dadaism to then influence the look and sounds of dark/new wave bands still in circulation) of the fabulous '80s?

Well, not all donuts come out with a hole: if you look at the final realization of the "Werk 80" product, then you might notice that the first doubts arise from the choice of the tracklist. Alongside immortal songs like the ones already mentioned, there are others not particularly worthy of mention or historically less influential, like "Rage Hard" or "Maid of Orleans", while others like "The Great Commandment", "Der Mussolini", or "Being Boiled", despite the excellent final result, cannot certainly be counted among the mega hits of the eighties, to the extent that it is a bit difficult to recognize them, also due to the fact that these, like many other songs on the album, have been revisited by eliminating/ downgrading most of the electronic harmonic embellishments to then replace the melodic skeleton with powerful guitars and a human drum set. This is the case for tracks like "Let’s dance" and "Don’t go", the latter moreover hampered by the limited expressive capacity of our Krull on vocals (something that unfortunately affects the success of the entire album).

As for the purely technical side, there is little to complain about; the recording is excellent, even if the guitar sound is a bit lo-fi as it is too compressed and buzzing, the overall performance and interpretation of the proposed tracks is quite personal, and in 5 songs (including the same "Shout") there is the addition of the ethereal voice of the ubiquitous Liv Kristine Espanaes (it seems that the latter and good Krull cannot live/work separately), at the time still the voice of the overrated Theatre of Tragedy. The erotic artwork, all latex and classical instruments, is also excellent and appetizing.

In conclusion, "Werk 80" is certainly an interesting album for the originality of the proposal, even if the final result leaves a bit of a bitter taste, thinking about what could have been and what it actually was.

But hearing a "Wild Boys" like this is priceless. Try giving it a listen.