Seven years after they last worked together, Sascha Konietzko and Tim
Skold decided that being on separate continents was not enough reason
to avoid working on an album together. Thus, in June of 2008 the two
laid down some ground rules (no guitars, no real drum kits) and began
bouncing ideas and content back and forth to each other over an FTP
server. Four months later they wrapped things up, and another four
months later they released Skold Vs. KMFDM through their own
website, on Sascha's own label. The result is an angry, powerful
industrial album that's equal parts Skold, KMFDM and MDFMK, yet
somehow greater than the sum of its parts.
As one might expect from an album titled Skold vs KMFDM, many
of the tracks lean one way or the other. The lead track, "Why Me,"
tastes a bit more KMFDM with its throbbing techno beat and Sascha
taking point on the vocals; to use an old American Bandstand
catch phrase, "it's got a good beat and you can dance to it." By way
of contrast, "Antigeist" is more Skold-influenced, a cyberpunk piece
de resistance that in many ways sounds like the flipside to "Shut Up,"
the closing track of Skold's self-titled album. "Bloodsport," the next
full-length track, is again more militarized KMFDM-style techno, with
Sascha growling along through the Mortal Kombat-esque lyrics;
one can't help but feel that if Lucia Cifarelli joined in on the
chorus, it'd morph into something not unlike MDFMK. This is followed
by "Love is Like" (again, leaning Skold-wards) definitely the most
memorable (and, dare I say, radio friendly) track on the album,
already having been featured in an episode of NCIS (albeit
with more, dare I say, television friendly lyrics).
Standouts among the seven remaining full-length tracks include: "Error
404," a slower, poppier tune with Skold's record-skipping vocals
filtered through a vocoder, computer bleeps standing in for missing
guitar; "Gromky," an aggressive industrial track that sounds like it
drifted out of Soviet Russia to punch you in the face (and "cut out
your mother's tongue"); and "Alkohol," a kitch piece like something
out of Repo: The Genetic Opera, equal parts techno and GLU-
style industrial, KMFDM-style drum loops mashing Sascha and Skold's
lyrics together into an ode to face-bashing debauchery. A personal
favorite is the penultimate track, "All Or Nothing," a slow cyberpunk
dirge with echoes of Skold's "Neverland" that brings the album to an
epic end.
Well, nearly so; the actual final track is "Why Me (Interlude)," one
of eleven on the album that account for half the number of tracks, but
only about two-and-a-half tracks worth of music, each coming in at
somewhere between 0:52 and 2:26. These are not mere filler; they're
more like appetizers, or palate cleansers, little alternate takes on
the main tracks that spin things in a new direction. Some are
admittedly stronger than others, and in a few places the stitches come
a bit loose, but overall the Interludes are not something you'll just
skip over to "get to the good stuff" -- they are good stuff.
"Bloodsport (Interlude)" reminds me of the quieter parts of "Mr. Self
Destruct" off nine inch nails' The Downward Spiral, almost
like listening to someone being beaten in the next hotel room over; "A
Common Enemy (Interlude)," later on the album, similarly reminds me of
something akin to one of the TDS remixes, and both "It's Not What
(Interlude)" and "Gromky (Interlude)" evoke tracks off Year Zero, like lightning in a bottle, screaming to get out. Still others
seem ripped straight out of video game soundtracks; "Why Me
(Interlude)" is like Se7en meets Left 4 Dead, and
"Error 404 (Interlude)" would be right at home on the Bioshock 2 soundtrack, with its God-Died-Underwater spookiness, water
sloshing, bubbles rising... It all makes me wonder if Skold and Sascha
shouldn't follow in Iron Maiden's footsteps with an actual video game:
less Ed Hunter, and more... well, Skold vs KMFDM. The
soundtrack's already written.
Favorite Track: "All or Nothing"
