KMFDM is celebrating forty years of conceptual continuity with the release of their twenty-third album Let Go (Metropolis Records). Let’s give that one some thought. Forty years holding to a musical concept throughout 23 albums is an achievement not many bands of their ilk can boast, as how many of their peers are this prolific? The sticking point on Let Go might be how continuous that concept is, and at what point are we weighing it against?
A better question might be, what conclusions might a kid hearing KMFDM for some time come to after listening to Let Go? They are certainly going to be different ones than when I heard KMFDM’s Angst album in 1993. Even then, I was six albums into their career. To better wrap my head around where this album finds the band creatively, which is with half the aggression that fueled Angst I had to think about it from the perspective of my relationship with KISS’ disco era. Unmasked to this day is one of my favorite Kiss albums because it was the first one I bought in 1980. Teenagers I looked up to at this point in my life, might have scoffed because they grew up listening to “Hotter Than Hell”, but until I heard “God Of Thunder” I did not know any different, nor did I have the internet to tell me otherwise. Teenagers in the Midwest today might only have 3TEETH and Code Orange as reference points for what industrial music is and might think Let Go is kinky sex music for their parents. To be fair the album does hold more common ground with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s anthemic moments than it does Static-X or Fear Factory.
Sole original member Sascha Konietzko does not refer to the band’s sound as Industrial but “The Ultra Heavy Beat.” Though consider the source here as Robert Smith has also said The Cure is not Goth. In the defense of “The Ultra Heavy Beat,” KMFDM’s sound has been moving in the direction found on this album throughout their past three albums. Where I can reconcile 1993 with 2024 is in the more dystopian mood of “Next Move” which is one of this album’s strongest moments. There is a robotic tone and stark lyrical outlook. It’s in the same Cyberpunk zip code of Industrial just with the aggression vented in a different direction. If you have stayed current with KMFDM releases over the past decade, this will seem like the next logical step. If the last song you remember is “Juke Joint Jezebel” – then welcome to the world we now live in.
Thanks to the songwriting partnership of Lucia Cifarelli and Sascha, they are now able to explore new melodic territory, some with even pop tendencies. However, they are still more adjacent to the Revolting Cocks than Selena Gomez. This is balanced out with songs like “Turn The Light On” which would not feel out of place in the setlist of a local “goth nite” DJ, still falling within the bounds of what could be labeled Dark Wave or Future Pop. They continue to prove no matter what style of music they are being ventured into that they are a great songwriting team, who knows no limits to places they are willing to explore. By splitting the vocal duties they offer a wide range. The songs span from Lucia’s sex-dripping purr to her more aggressive vocal delivery, along with coming closer to a more classic nineties Industrial sound thanks to Sascha’s Germanic accent, which had as much influence on Rammstein, as Laibach.
Perhaps they are not as experimental as Psychic TV, but still get weirder than they have in some time on the song “Totem E Eggs.” Weird is not the overall vibe of this album which works off Disco groove, and Rock syncopation all in the same songs, so thinking of this as your parent’s kinky sex soundtrack is not off the mark. The songs grow on you with each listen and after the third spin, you find yourself forgetting to go look for that “Money” cassette, and accepting the fact that Sascha and company are not content with just riding a wave of retro nostalgia nor are the recycling their glory days, but continuing to grow their sound even forty years, alter which has to be respected even if you still wish they were “a drug against war,” in other ways they are stronger than ever before. This is a treat for the freak, and if you are not ready for it they don’t care.
Buy the album here:
https://kmfdm.bandcamp.com/album/let-go
9 / 10
WIL CIFER