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KMFDM  - a legendary band with a style entirely their own. Of course, controversy has followed them for decades - from accusations that their music inspired Columbine violence, to questionable references like birthday celebrations of Hitler, to vague anti-establishment gestures. There’s plenty to unpack. But when a band is this bold and has such a long, uncompromising history, blandness simply isn’t an option. That’s the price - or the reward - of having character and substance.
Exactly 20 years after the release of Hau Ruck, we now get its reissue. To me, this music is a jolt of pure energy: aggressive, decisive, and addictive, the mix of sampled absurdity, militaristic rhythms, and sardonic theatricality that offers layers beyond layers. Aside from Ministry, PIG, or Skinny Puppy, I can’t think of another act that delivers this particular combination of vocal abrasion and sonic weight. That raw, dirty, razor-edged delivery is unmistakably theirs - impossible to confuse with anyone else.
And the sound? It’s metal, it’s industrial; dark and pounding, but without the sterile precision that sometimes flattens pure industrial. This is something more volatile, more alive.
Two decades on, HAU RUCK still stands as one of KMFDM’s most uncompromising statements — angular, confrontational, and sonically unrelenting. Remixed and remastered for its 20th anniversary, HAU RUCK 2025 lands with doubled weight. The update is real: fuller frequencies, tighter mixes, and impact sharpened across the board. Yet the original fire remains intact. What’s new is the space that now surrounds the fury, space that allows it to breathe, expand, and strike harder.
KMFDM have always worked in the friction between sonic extremity and ideological clarity. Their blend of industrial grit, electronic density, and metal muscle didn’t just shape a genre - it defined their signature. HAU RUCK distills that into a compact arsenal: vocals as deliberate abrasion, beats like collapsing scaffolding, arrangements that slice like serrated blades. It’s precise, but never clean; muddy where it needs to pulse, sharp where it needs to wound.
Lyrically, the album hits with unsettling prescience. "Free Your Hate" remains its keynote — a pulse that warns and invites. The lyrics, often misread, work more like ideological Rorschach tests. Lines like "The beatings will continue / Until morale improves" or "Crusade in the days of rage" aren’t violent calls to arms; they’re systemic autopsies. This isn’t nihilism. It’s analysis. A track like this functions as a weaponized diagnosis of control, and the arc of the album follows that path - from confrontation to catharsis.
Other standouts - "Real Thing," "New American Century," "Professional Killer" - dissect moral exhaustion and cultural decay with a scalpel, not a hammer. There’s rage here, but it’s conscious and composed. Instead of  flattening anger into slogans, KMFDM sculpt it. Each line calibrated. Each track engineered to hit and stay. Even the oddball cover "Mini Mini Mini" becomes a moment of commentary: absurdity planted right in the middle of polemic - a grin under the war paint.
The lineup - Konietzko, Cifarelli, Hodgson, Selway, White - was locked in at full cohesion. What they delivered wasn’t chaos, but a controlled detonation.

Author: khocico
Translator: khocico
Add date: 2025-05-23 / Music reviews