EP Review: MetzgerButcher - Kultur (2021)
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| Picture Credit: MetzgerButcher |
MetzgerButcher - Kultur
Release Date: December 03, 2021
Label: Metzger Platten
Format: CD / Digital
Length: 12:20
Genre: Electro Punk / New Wave
Origin: Bonn, Germany
Around one year after the release of their first EP "2020 präsentiert", Bonn's butchering brothers Hans W. Metzger and Larry Butcher are back with their sophomore release "Kultur". The second EP is available on CD, and it contains one track more than the debut EP, but that is not all that has changed. MetzgerButcher still sound like MetzgerButcher, and yet their style has gone through some serious progress.
The first track 'Fangt an' (German plural imperative: 'Begin' or 'Start') begins with a stoic bass line. The songdeals with the anticipation and the impatience of the audience minutes before a concert is about to begin. Like flashing lights, a powerful half-electronic Post Punk thunderstorm breaks loose, as MetzgerButcher let the song climax in its first chorus: 'Fangt an!'.
'Sprachnachricht' ('Voice message') is a Punk Rock and Neue Deutsche Welle dance number in which loving parents tell their offspring that they really love them, but that it was time to leave the nest now. Torn apart between finally having the kid out of the house and already missing them, the parents say goodbye.
The title track is a very soft New Wave and Indie Rock song that deals with, well with culture. The easygoing lyrics are told from the perspective of a (probably) privileged culture lover. Going from a museum to a theatre and watching a film, and attending a concert, the protagonist is very happy about being so... cultural. The listeners might as well ask, what ind of culture are we talking about? Why does high culture (or Culture as you say in British Cultural Studies) receive so many funds while subculture or niche culture is strugling for every penny? The pandemic has shown us the magnitude of this phenomenon. The song 'Kultur' is probably the most skippable musc-wise on this EP, and yet its content may launch discussions.
With the fourth track 'Irgendwie tot' ('Somehow dead') the best part of the EP commences. In this dark and melancholic Post Punk song, the band leads the listeners through the streets of a village, small town, or suburban area in Germany. The sadness and hostility of such places is shown via sounds that make the air freeze while they choke you. In the latter part of the song, a 1980s Depro Punk rises which then perfectly leads into the following track.
And here it is, the EP's strongest song 'Was glaubst du?' ('What do you believe in?'). Electronic Depro Punk and Post Punk in the style of the last pre-apocalyptic era tell a sad story that was written by the years 2020 and 2021. The song is about a protagonist who talks to a friend whom they admired for their critical and intelligent ways back in school. But now this friend has become a conspiracy theorist, believing in QAnon, a Jewish-led New World Order, and the weird tales of a vegan chef or a terrible singer (probably only Germany know what this is about. Vegan chef Attila Hildmann and former Soul singer Xavier Naidoo have become leading figures in the German antivaxx/Q/etc movement).
The last two tracks on "Kultur" are really thrilling. The first three tracks, and the title track especially, lack dynamics and movement a bit. Nevertheless, MetzgerButcher hereby show that they have developed within the last year. Their music has become a lot darker which is a development I can only endorse.
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