Formed in the 1998 on the beautiful city of Krefeld, Japanische Kampfhörspiele is, in my humble opinion, one of the best grind bands out there. Perhaps I should correct myself, Japanische Kampfhörspiele doesn’t play pure grindcore, but rather grindcore filled with many other influences, such as death metal, punk, well, I would have to write pages about every single style this band blends, making them so unique and a cult act. I better mention how they describe themselves so you can see the weirdness of their sound: popgrindpunk.
After they disbanded in 2011, the band returns with a killer album named Welt Ohne Werbung to be released this month, May, 2014 via Apocaplexy Records’s sub label Phantom Records. Welt Ohne Werbung represents everything that Japanische Kampfhörspiele a mixture of extreme music, weird sounds, funny and interesting at the same time German lyrics, mood changes (between songs and into the own songs), it’s so unusual and crazy and yet magnificent in its own extremeness and imposing. You can sense that they just don’t throw elements here and there to sound different or almost avant-garde, no, I feel that it’s all very well planned. I have to admit that their music style is very complex to define, almost an impossible task!
Unlike most of the grind bands, Japanische Kampfhörspiele’s Welt Ohne Werbung features many “long” songs for the genre. The first one, for example is over four minutes. Funny thing about the first song, Ihr verdammten, it started with a groovy mood, then it stopped for a second. Right on this moment I though, here comes the attack! But no, the groovy style remained, until, yes, the vocals merged into the song. I seriously think that any extreme metal/ grindcore/ weird music fan would enjoy every single song of Welt Ohne Werbung. I’ll just comment on a few as I believe I should do this: Der Neue Hitler will make you headbang, jump, whatever, go insane. It’s freaking amazing. Konditionierungsapparat is another awesome song; the guitar work is very skilled here. I can’t choose one song to represent the album, as I mentioned before, they aren’t alike, Welt Ohne Werbung is indeed a very diverse album. Oh, one more song that I’d like to mention is Chef de Cuisine, it will blow your mind!
And some more info about the released itself, you can order it on the CD version or vinyl, limited to 500 copies (200 in blue and 300 in black). Both have one bonus tracks each: Gedanken lessen on CD and Multispektralzielsystem on vinyl. Well, it seems that the blue vinyl is already sold-out. A real pity.
As my final verdict, Japanische Kampfhörspiele is back and back to its rightful place, as the kings of German Grindcore. Ohne Werbung is very solid, mature and, as always, innovative. If you enjoy this musical style, you won’t be disappointed at all. And if you are already familiar with their music, in my modest view, this album is even better than Bilder fressen Strom, the album which I used (now) to consider their best. Order it now!
Grade: 9,8/10
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Danke, Markus.
