TANZWUT - "LABYRINTH DER SINNE" (EMI ELECTROLA)
Please first make sure you read the "Metal Fest" review at the bottom of the music section, for that will introduce you to my introduction to Tanzwut. It will explain briefly what I so far thought of music with a bit of a beat and the German language. It will also explain to you how I somehow broke open a few of the limits of my own taste and decided to allow in this German kindof dance-band. There are two reasons why it shouldn't be reviewed here: First it's a CD released in 2000, so that's too old. Second it's kindof a dance CD, right? Well, it's got distorted guitars and certain similarities to Rammstein, and obviously I can do with my own magazine what I want, right? :-)
A few days after "Metal Fest" I decided to just go out and get that CD. And I haven't regretted it.
"Labyrinth der Sinne" is quite a magnificent CD, at least at start. It kicks off with the up-tempo "Tanzwut", followed by a selection of extremely memorable, well-written tracks with haunting choruses: "Extase", "Lügner", "Bitte, Bitte" and "Labyrinth". Around then, you start to notice that the bagpipes do cause the tracks to have a slighty similar atmosphere. "Niemals Ohne Dich" is a very sad kindof love song that follows on the heels of the really good tracks, but then you get six tracks that generally leave very much less of an impression. They seem less inspired, more simple, and definitely with less memorable melodic elements. The album ends with "Götterfunken", lyrically inspired by Goethe and musically inspired by Beethoven's 9th Symphony. That's a rather cool track.
All in all, what you have here is half a really good CD, half an average CD. But it's certainly 100% of an unusual addition to my CD collection.
I'd like to abuse this review to rant at the CD industry a bit, though. The price I paid for this album was 23 Euros, the equivalent of about US$ 21 or what used to be almost 51 Dutch guilders. And that didn't include postage costs of any sort. Now if this were a rare imported CD with Japanese scribblings, bonus tracks, 64-bit gold remaster, signed by the band for all I care, such a hefty price might be somewhat justified. But what's happening here is that the change to the Euro, in combination with an already exorbitantly high CD price, has come together to provide me with a feeling of being severely butt-fucked (if you'll pardon my French). Please, where can we complain about this kind of consummate consumer screwing? Or should I simply not have bought the album? The CD industry knows it offers something that people want, so that's why they can increase prices like there's no tomorrow. I think this is a total outrage. 23 Euro is a stupidly high price for any CD!
Although I am afraid I have to admit that writing this down doesn't lessen my indignation much, I hope this will in some subliminally tiny way help to make things better. Maybe, one day.
RK
Written February 2002