3 out of 5

Label: Metropolis

Producer: Rudy Ratzinger

I hemmed and hawed over a 4 or 3 star rating for this, because when Cannibal Anthem shines, it’s really exciting.  There are some fascinating things contributed to the world of industrial music on this recording, especially surprising from a dude who tends to default to dance floor grim… which is where the unshiny parts of Anthem get dragged down into monotony, to the point where the odd tracks just blend together.  But Anthem is an atypically short listen for a :wump: album, so the inclusion of those great tracks definitely makes it worth it.

After an intro track, we start off how Rudy normally starts off – a great beat heavy aggressor, Wir Warten, nothing surprising but good and gloomy, with enough production touches to make it a good head-bobbing track.  It also starts the trend for this album being in German, which is welcome.  Not that it helps disguise the overly simplistic lyrics (even if you have the barest grasp of German, repeated phrases about love and death and life are pretty easy to pick out), but it just feels more natural and flows better.  Rudy’s English sufficed for the purpose of :wump:, but the fact that it IS so straight forward always begged the question of why it was necessary to change the language.  We know the dude’s German.  The industrial kids probably have that on their checklist of requirements.  So whatevs, it’s nice that it’s in a native language here.

Warten passes, and then we get into the problem tracks.  This is the kinda fluff that followup ‘Body Census’ was full of – predictable tracks (not enough push in any given direction) with cheesy or stupid lyrics (degrees cheesier or stupider, highlighted by the lack of the song’s distinction) that pander to club kids or sad kids.  Meh.  And track five starts, the title track, and it seems like it’s going to be the same deal.  But then WTF there’s like a jazzy / funky guitar sample that’s welded seamlessly into the song.  And then the totally ethereal ‘Auf Der Jagd’ follows, that wouldn’t be out of place on some electro-tinged Thrill Jockey release.  Where’s Rudy’s album full of these tracks?  It’d be interesting to see him ditch the clad-in-black for an album and totally commit to this direction.  Just once.  We can’t stay on this elevated plane forever, for better or worse, as the tail end of the album todders back into more typical compositions.

Still, I found ‘Cannibal’ more listenable on repeat than a lot :wump:, but that is mostly due to the brevity that I mention.  Rudy is vastly talented, and stuffed with ideas, but he executes them when he pleases, rarely putting out fully solid works.  Cannibal Anthem follows that template, though its scattered highlights do stand as some of Rudy’s most innovative tracks.