Oomph!
Unrein

After "Wunschkind," there was a decisive turning point in Oomph!'s career: their first major record contract. With the fall of Dynamica Records, Dero, Crap, and Flux signed with Virgin Schallplatten, and after albums like "Sperm," "Defekt," and especially "Wunschkind," this was a well-deserved and rightful "promotion." The years spent at the German branch of Sir Richard Branson's company were a highly dynamic and almost "chaotic" period in the group's history. These were years that left a profound mark, both positively and negatively, but the relationship began with continuity through "Unrein" in 1998: as the title and cover largely suggest, no revolution was occurring; here, a cycle was definitely closing rather than opening a new chapter.

"Wunschkind" and "Unrein" are two albums closely tied together, almost twins: like its predecessor, this album also features compositions that are generally more elaborate and complex by Oomph! standards, focusing more on technique, even though the emotional impact is always dominant, and here too, we find pessimistic, introspective, and nihilistic lyrics. However, "Unrein" is a small step back compared to "Wunschkind," not because it is an inferior product, but because it loses some of the raw and desperate pathos that characterized the 1996 album: cleaner sounds, more space for crossover, and a more muscular, less sick mood; differences that are perfectly captured when comparing the two openers: the old "Born-Praised-Kissed" was a descent into an anguishing existential anguish, while "Unsere Rettung", epic and driving, recovers that more "extroverted" power akin to "Defekt": rocky riffs that give the song a formidable visual, almost cinematic impact, and Dero's exalted and fierce singing reaches its climax in the sarcastic paean "Ave satani et stupor et christi", confronting the theme of religion and its related hypocrisy with corrosive sarcasm, a theme treated even more explicitly in "Gekreuzigt", an excellent and seismic single with blasphemous and scandalous yet sharp, critical, and intelligent lyrics in which Dero addresses Jesus Christ with an ironic and bitter "You have changed the world forever with your heart of gold, you have changed the world forever, and now they buy and sell you."

White-hot blasts like "Unsere Rettung" and "Gekreuzigt" testify to a rage that spills outward, moving away from the deeper vortex, as do the excellent "Anniversary" and "Another Disease", where Dero also proves himself excellent as an MC, representing the last and best examples of the crossover style that would be abandoned in subsequent years, but "Unrein" is still the twin of "Wunschkind"; the darker shadows are still there, looming and menacing: "Die Maske" is the natural evolution of the previous LP's title track, retaining its sickly and hissing progression intact, while the schizophrenic "My Hell" is a wild seesaw careening dangerously between hysteria and the darkest despair, which prevails in the alienating title track "Unrein" and, especially, in one of the album's greatest gems, the poignant "Foil", slow and unusual for Oomph!, dominated by a hypnotic and dramatic electronic beat that highlights the deepest and most fragile side of Dero's voice, in a heartfelt plea that is ravaged in the end by the fury of guitars.

Barely tainted by an endemic flaw such as the presence of some tracks that are somewhat overshadowed, typical of many Oomph! albums, "Unrein" presents itself as a majestic and vibrant closure in grand style to the '90s for the trio from the city of the Beetle and Golf; indeed, despite the next album being dated 1999, it is already a world apart: Oomph!, who cannot be accused of any creative stagnation whatsoever, completely change direction: after "Unrein," nothing will ever be the same again, and the shadows will be swept away by a white light...