KMFDM
Hell Yeah

Excitement to the max, that's the most fitting definition for this "Hell Yeah" by KMFDM, an acronym I can never write correctly, damn those Germans. They're quite an unusual band, with singer Lucia Cifarelli (who's hot) being American, though I still haven't figured out if she has Italian roots. Anyway, these are questions only I seem to ponder. Let's get back to the album, as fun as a day at the amusement park, a little over an hour of brain-relaxing for a change, perfect even as a soundtrack for a couple of Thunder Force matches. Are we on board? Oh, we certainly are. The band is famous for having invented dance metal, and this is undoubtedly the danciest album ever crafted by Sascha Konietzko and company, with electric guitars at their bare minimum, when not heavily processed. More than thinking of the creation birthed by a real band, the idea is rather that of an overproduced album with a DAW, some sampled lines, and a good sound engineer. Is that enough? Of course, it is.

Let's start by saying that the sound design is much cleaner, fuller, and generally more engaging than in previous KMFDM albums, almost a mandatory feature since, as mentioned, the album strays a bit from pure industrial metal to wink at techno tribe and synth sound enthusiasts. It's the most electronic album ever produced by this prolific band, some will be happy and some won't, I'm happy. The eponymous track immediately gets the party started with "La Germania è con te", then unleashes a wall of synths, acid basslines, and heavily processed metal riffs. On this backdrop, a male voice sings, with typically politically-inclined lyrics—"ilsistemanonva-sesemorottispaccamotutto." But it's all harmless and colorful like a water cannon; I find it unlikely that someone would take to the streets to shoot after listening to the album, but the human mind remains a mystery. Let's move on as the night draws near, and since I'm writing at night, I'll see the dawn. Freak Flag brings Cifarelli into the scene, who will be a major protagonist on the album, and here she unleashes herself in a techno breakbeat that's really indebted to the Fluke sound, but much more flashy: racing cars in the background, guitar riffs, distorted sounds, turn on the PlayStation or Xbox and score a bingo. The track is very enjoyable and splendidly crafted. Two short dub interludes follow, containing the caustic Total State Machine, where the sound toughens up, exposing the band's industrial roots. In Murder my Heart Cifarelli elbows her way back in, unsure of which timbre to assume, she opts for a kaleidoscopic whirl of references: her voice recalls a thousand singers, but not randomly chosen, from Allison Goldfrapp to Tony Halliday, possibly even Debbie Harry, all dark ladies worthy of tipping one's hat. The singing, therefore, is highly derivative, but not unpleasant, and anyway, Lucia can also become quite fierce in R4 the Damned, only to soften in Shock (here the resemblance to Curve becomes perilous) and deliver a very dark performance in Only Lovers, with an applause-worthy intro: "Stand by you till the end, if we are doomed, we have nothing to lose".

Hell Yeah plays with politics right from the cover, which reminds me of Kim Jong-un, but I could be wrong, though I like it this way, so it's fine. In Rip the System 2.0 a male voice sings the world's shortest text "Black, white, and yellow man, destroy the system." Go ahead. Always solid closure, in pure KMFDM style, in this case with Glam Glitz Guts & Gore, which besides having the best title in the world, catapults us into an apocalypse of sounds, big guitars, and quite aggressive vocals. The rapid-fire synths here too recall the industrial universe, but very much calibrated for wide-ranging entertainment. Guaranteed result. An album I recommend if you want to create some good chaos, not a masterpiece to play for future grandchildren, but an album that entertains, and these days, isn't that enough?