Neue Deutschland Harte bands besides Rammstein

So one thing I realized while getting analytic about “Reise, Reise” is that I know NOTHING about NDH music besides Rammstein. I looked at the fairly long list of bands on the NDH Wikipedia page, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t recognize a single other name. I know there’s only a few of us in the Sphere, but can anyone make any recommendations? Otherwise, I may just jump in cold and see what’s what...

PS I just noticed the unintentional autocorrect of Deutsche to Deutschland. Have a heart, I’m in between laptops.

Eisbrecher & Oomph! seem to be the two artists that get the most appreciation although I can't say I'm familiar with either of them. Perhaps check them out & let us all know if they're worth our time or not.

Cool, yeah will do.

Okay, so over the weekend I checked out three NDH records from 2004: Eisbrecher's S/T debut, Tanzwut's S/T live Double (Triple?) LP, and Oomph!'s "Wahreit oder Pflicht." I didn't do a deep dive into any of them, just one or two solid listens. Starting with the Oomph! LP: I picked this particular record because it's (apparently) their most popular, I think largely due to the single "Augen auf!" One thing I found surprising is, if it was taken out of context, the record would qualify way more as an Alternative Metal record than an Industrial one. I suppose the differences between the two genres can be slight. There are keyboards, but they're pretty minimal, and work more in the overdub fashion than as a part of the musical body. The overall sound is pretty organic, and while the performance is super tight, it's not exactly mechanical. The drummer sounds human and the vocals have soul. It's not my cup of tea, but I couldn't find anything bad about it either, so it's probably worth checking out if you're into the System of a Down/Deftones end of the spectrum. I do think "Augen auf!" is a pretty good song.  2.5/5  On to the Eisbrecher LP: this one is a little more up my alley. Much heavier on the electronics and jocking monotone vocals. It's also really dancey and has some female soul-singer backing vox, so it reminds me of KMFDM, although I think I like this a little better. The guitars are definitely along those lines as well, but the synths are a little more brutal. Before I decided to have all the records I reviewed be from 2004, I sampled a few of their other albums. I tried 2015's "Schock" because it had the coolest cover (isn't that the classic way to pick something anyway?) and listened to a few songs but decided it was too bland, like third-rate Rammstein. I sampled a track each on a few others, and got the best results with this one. The problem with "Eisbrecher" though, is that nothing really sticks out. It checks plenty of the boxes for me (well chosen synths, danceable but not wimpy, etc.) but after giving it a couple of listens, I'm hard pressed to recall any of the riffs, hooks or vocals parts. In other words, it's not memorable. I guess it gets the job done though, so I'll (generously) give it a 3/5. Lastly we have the Tanzwut live extravaganza. I thought I should have one more record/band to report on, so I picked this one kind of randomly (using the country/year/genre filter on this very site), and it's definitely my favorite of the three. This is also the closest to what I was expecting, sounding the most like Rammstein.  Technically they fall into the Folk Metal category since they use bagpipes, but to my ears this is pure Industrial. Sure the bagpipes are there, but listening to this without any frame of reference, they could easily been synths utilizing a bagpipe sound. More importantly, the melodies on the bagpipes are, for the most part, pretty cool. Tanzwut are also way more metal than Eisbrcher, with much  heavier and more prominant guitars. The guitars for Oomph! were pretty heavy as well I guess, but these are executed over the kind of marching rythms that I was hoping for when I delved into this stuff. While live reords are usually a turn off, I think it benefits Tanzwut by giving it a fuller sound than may be on their studio work (just a guess, I haven't tried those records out yet). I had to listen to this in segments (it's almost 2 hours long) but I found myself more than once listening to just one more song before taking a break, which is a good sign. Be warned, it is kind of poppy too, or maybe it just seems that way because of the cheers and the singer's banter (I don't think I would enjoy it as much if I understood German). 3.5/5 

Overall, I'd be lying if I said I was blown away by any of this. When I'm in the mood for something like Rammstein...I'll probably still just listen to Rammstein.  Oomph! aren't really my thing, and Eisbrecher I could take or leave. While not amazing, I did like the Tazwut album enough to probably go back to again at some point ,and I'll probably check out some of their studio stuff too. At some point I'll try out more NDH but I think I'm satisfied for now. 

Chris, I hope you're still around. I just came back to this old thread to ask you something... Are you across this: