Towering Inferno
Kaddish

There is a small statue of a white ceramic Madonna in a house in Civitavecchia that cries scarlet tears. Research is being conducted on the DNA of that blood, but any scientific approach—which therefore claims to be truthful—always verges on blasphemy.

Similarly, a truthful review of this album will not be found anywhere: it is discussed by condemning the Holocaust that inspired it and praising the courage of the two avant-garde rock musicians who frescoed the tragedy and the ensuing horror, anguish, and anger using everything at their disposal, much like composing a salad at McDonald's self-service kiosk. A salad that would have been tastier if they hadn't gotten carried away by the kaleidoscopic colors of possibilities, if they had imposed some limits.

In reality, this "apocalyptic elegy for Europe's lost souls" was born out of the boredom of bombarding the public with the techno, ambient, and dance program that Richard Wolfson and Andy Saunders were taking around Europe.
The wolf, however, does not change its habits: "Kaddish" is a dazzling carnival of techno, heavy metal, ambient, (exquisite) African rhythms, of Laibach if Laibach were not cabaret performers, of folk and other sound styles still. In all of which Wolfson and Saunders excel, generating in the listener the desire for them to choose a format and stick to it for the entire duration of an album. If it's experimental for its heterodox combinations, "Kaddish" is classic in the nobility of its movements. It's a work, complete with recitatives (psalms and passages in Hebrew) and popular melodies. Even the demonic exhortations recorded backward are not missing. But don't believe, if you read that Eno has said it's the most frightening record he has ever heard: we know, Brian is always with his head in the clouds. He should stop trying to impress those younger than him, right James?, right Bono?, and pay more attention when I explain Front 242 and Disco Inferno.

Something is happening, something important and terribly interesting: in the vastness of the impeccable production, these uninhibited sounds acquire a worldwide resonance. Truly—for once—music to be played at full volume. Music that, although intriguing, remains strangely remote. The suffering of strangers generates indifference: the words incomprehensible, the pain indifferent. Despite remaining a massive presence, at times so much so as to be unwieldy, "Kaddish" loses beauty and power by wanting to be too much of a document. And then, if that’s where the authors’ inspiration comes from, it’s a real pity that we’ll have to wait for the end of the third world war for a second album.

Or the weeping of another madonna.