Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for KMFDM - Xtort (1996)

The most popular era of KMFDM began with their album Nihil and would carry on to their next album Xtort. At this point, they were really rising as the industrial rock pioneers they've been known to be. They also introduced some aspects to industrial music that were barely used in industrial back then such as fast punk-ish tempos. They would pave the way for other popular German industrial rock/metal bands such as Rammstein.

The songs in Xtort are as great as the ones in Nihil. It's a nice variety with some songs I find superb and others I find OK. And that's interesting because I usually prefer my industrial metal to have more of the metal...

"Power" begins with what sounds like a phone call before the instrumentation slowly builds up. It's an excellent start to this album and would make a great show starter. I enjoy the chorus that sounds like if they collaborated with the Muses from Disney's Hercules. "Apathy" has too much mud in the sound, though it gets clearer when they slow down. "Rules" has enjoyable vocals. Male/female vocal combos are not common in industrial metal, and that's something I enjoy in one of The Sphere's later bands, Mechina.

"Craze" has good vocals, but the instrumentation falls into the same muddy trap. "Dogma" starts off with strange alien synths before Nicole Blackman provides spoken vocals. In all honesty, that song might remind some more of Devo. "Inane" is INSANE!!! Sascha Konietzko performs his usual vocal distortion alongside rising chords, singing about the band themselves and their greatness. The country-ish guitars are also quite fun. Fantastic highlight! Next up, "Blame" has a nice midtempo intro of hardcore guitar melodies. The instrumentation stands out as well, even going far as to using brass horns!

"Son of a Gun" has more of that male vocal distortion. It's also used in the chorus while harmonized by the female singing. They really explore a lot in the synth department. "Ikons" continues the vocal distortion with some machine FX. "Wrath" is a strong way out. Everything's in great balance including the vocals and production. I enjoy the lyrics and synth breaks. Then it all ends with the last bit of strange synth noises. Finally, "Fairy" is an unusual hidden track with just piano and an eerie voice reading a fairytale.

For any KMFDM listeners out there, you don't wanna miss out on this great example of this sound. You can listen to the album while taking a night drive in your car. Beats and heaviness can sound quite good together....

Favorites: "Power", "Rules", "Inane", "Blame", "Wrath"