Einstürzende Neubauten
Tabula Rasa

"Tabula rasa". Or the point of no return in the music of Einstürzende Neubauten. The Berlin sound terrorists completely change their approach to music, or rather the perspective of observation, moving from the total madness of their early works (capable of driving you and your neighbors crazy) to a more deliberate form, less theatrical and expressionist and more "musical". Simply put, after destructuring music as a whole, they now try to piece together the destroyed and violated fragments of what remains, creating what is commonly defined as "music" without abandoning the very peculiar sounds of a "homemade" instrumentation. (Which other band plays with barrels, shopping carts, iron pipes, concrete blocks, classic hammers, and pneumatic tires?)

In addition to the aforementioned "instruments", Hacke's bass is in the foreground here, and Blixa Bargeld dedicates himself to a singing style that is the natural continuation of what was experimented on "Hamletmaschine", an album that had shyly proposed a somewhat uncertain change.

However, the group's identity seems more intact than ever, as made clear by the dull tolling of the start of "die interimsliebenden", a sulfurous march that anticipates tribalism and sounds dear to Trent Reznor, which even allows for a certain danceability.

A round of harmonics opens the cantautorial "Zebulon", an unusual track for the Berlin ensemble, complete with back vocals and a hopping melody; this continues until it reaches three minutes, where it transforms into a compulsive punk rock with metallic percussion (or better said, metallurgical).

The discourse continues with the very refined "Blume", a chrysanthemum to be precise; sung by the icy voice of Anita Lane, it opens the first industrial suite of the album, but also serves as an extractable episode from the context, a hypothetical single.

"12305 (die nacht)" is presented heavy, dark, and swampy, reminiscent of the madness of their early works, though not particularly incisive or dramatic. It is the presence of melody and Bargeld's subdued singing that prevents total disorientation of the listener, allowing them not to be swallowed into the vortex and in the end view the usual Neubauten from an external perspective.

Because if in previous albums one was sucked in and physically suffered through the listening, here it feels like being a spectator of a terrible event, but from behind a one-way mirror, a position from which safety is never compromised.

Through two transitional episodes ("Sie" and the dark ambient of "Wuste") we arrive where one would not want to arrive. The suite "Headcleaner" is exactly as its meaning suggests, a persistent and numerous drill that insinuates itself into your cerebral cortex. It is pain, it is anguish, it is unease and above all urban discomfort, never fully dormant but completely and orderly metabolized. This is demonstrated by Blixa Bargeld's suffocated (and suffocating) braying over a placid but lysergic base of detuned guitar playing harmonics. The buildings have finally collapsed once again, and the glass that previously protected us now seems much thinner.

Ultimately, an opera that may seem like a compromise, but is most likely an indication of artistic maturity: the dynamiters of the past have now landed on more refined songs, the city once seen as an oppression for man-beast is now a setting and a new starting point for an art that is hurt, but terribly elegant.

Einstürzende Neubauten demonstrate they possess crystalline class and unparalleled charisma, and set the stakes for a path that continues up to the beautiful "Alles Wieder Offen", which will most likely hold pleasant surprises.