Album Review

Emigrate – Emigrate

• 8th Nov 2007

The second you learn that ‘Emigrate’ is actually the ‘other band’ of Rammstein guitarist Richard Kruspe, you either grab your Cyberdog top and stand ready in the headbanging position or roll your eyes and prepare for the worst. In this case, neither of these responses is really justified.

Believe it or not, this album is accessible, eclectic (for a metal band) and, in the season of old horror movies and trick or treating, ridiculously listenable. Maybe it’s because the lyrics are in English instead of German – a language that manages to make asking for a train ticket sound like a threat – or maybe it’s because Kruspe is mellowing now he’s reached his 40s, but the whole attitude of this record seems more relaxed than you might expect. In times, there’s a distinct similarity to White Zombie, and sometimes newer NIN stuff, but only once could you mistake this music for that of Kruspe’s previous band – at the beginning of ‘This Is What’, which could quite easily be the start of ‘Du Hast’.

That’s not to say he’s gone all Mark Ronson on us – ‘mein Gott, nein!’ The title track is a thumping, apocalyptic tune that builds and calms, builds and calms like a tantric tide, and just when you think you’re about to break on the shore and reach satisfaction, you’re thrown into ‘Wake Up’, which dives straight into popular metal territory and will no doubt be a favourite on a Friday night in Jilly’s/The Corp/Krazyhouse (delete as applicable). There’s definitely a more subjective atmosphere to this music than you can find in the all-out-assault of Rammstein, with the music often centring right in on the singer, but the album still has more spec than you get on, for example, Rico’s ‘Violent Silences’.

Perhaps it’s all the ghouls and goblins around at the moment, or perhaps it’s the fact that anything with a dirty guitar line and a throbbing bass will make me happy, but I’m very reluctant to take this out of the stereo. If I’m not enough of a German thirty-something man to appreciate Rammstein, this is right up my street. Now grab your PVC, leather boots and glo-sticks and let’s go out…