Oomph!
Defekt

THE REVIEW

With "Sperm," Oomph!, more or less consciously, marked the year zero of NDH: a record not revolutionary in intent but, in practice, for the influence it had on the then-emerging artistic movement. With "Sperm," a spark ignites, within the trio even before externally. Dero, Crap and Flux found a definitive base to work on, evolve, refine, develop, and enrich. It is the first crucial moment in Oomph!'s history, drawing new energy from the 1994 ejaculation, churning out three albums in sequence that represent, in a Rossini crescendo, the backbone of their "early years": just a year later, the first great confirmation comes: fired like a direct shot to the face comes "Defekt," another essential work in the band's artistic journey, the first to barely miss the status of a masterpiece.

"Defekt" presents itself as a profound but not radical evolution of its predecessor, essentially an improvement in every aspect, a "Sperm" developed to its full potential before the more substantial change implemented with the subsequent "Wunschkind" and "Unrein." Like the 1994 album, "Defekt" also features an important direct, instinctive, and violent component, but it expresses it more fully and maturely; the sound is more centered around guitars with a reduction of electronics, obviously on a quantitative and not qualitative level. "Defekt" sounds much more metal than "Sperm" and opens up to new influences: with tracks like "Your Love Is Killing Me" and "Ice-Coffin", Oomph! starts to flirt with crossover/rap metal without losing their identity: particularly the excellent "Ice-Coffin", chosen as the lead single, has become a classic for the Wolfsburg trio thanks also to Dero's engaging flow. However, the industial component still dominates the scene, more than ever predominant: songs like the incendiary and fast opener "Hate Sweet Hate" and a furious and nihilistic "Hello My Name Is Cancer" extremize that raw attitude already expressed in "Sperm," while the mid-tempo "Willst Du Hoffnung?", "Mitten Ins Herz", and "Turn The Knife" explore a slightly darker and introspective dimension, starting from the lyrics, which will become more evident in the subsequent works. A deeper exploration of sound, with harbingers felt even in the unsettling instrumentals "Decubitus Vulgaris" and especially "Zeitweilig Incontinent", real refinements resulting from Crap's flair, the great creative mind of Oomph!.

"Defekt", the title track that closes the album, is perhaps the most violent extreme ever touched by the band: granite and claustrophobic riffs and vitriolic vocals that follow each other, culminating in a hallucinated and obsessive concluding loop that drags on for five interminable minutes. But the album's peak remains the triumphant "Come And Kick Me", morbid, erotomanic, relentless, enriched by a fabulous groove in the foreground, with a gigantic Dero roaring "Kiss me, rape me, deflorate me, love me, trick me, come and kick me". This extraordinary performance, a crystalline example of the trio's potential expressed to the maximum, is also characterized by its slow, instrumental interlude, anticipating those grand atmospheres of insane and schizoid epicness that will make the subsequent "Wunschkind" great, and ultimately best expresses the essence of "Defekt," an album played truly "hard-core," way more than its predecessor, and which opens new and increasingly exciting scenarios for Oomph!, transforming the initial spark into a large blaze.