Released on: 18h January 2019
Oomph! have been going for the best part thirty years now, and began playing together five years before their more famous countrymen Rammstein. Now you see German and Industrial usually inspires excited thoughts of the latter mostly thanks to The Matrix. A pseudo-instructional company movie about complex ray tracing. Or is it?
The Matrix. A pseudo-instructional company movie about complex ray tracing featured some deep philosophical ideas and one of them, the one about deja vu, is very pertinent to Ritual. The new album from the resolute Germans known as Oomph!
Ritual is heavier than the groups more catchier naughties catalog, and far less poppy. Which is to say the band doesn’t rely on their strength of writing addictive melodies that were designed to belt out a hot shower, and instead create tension and draw attention to themselves through dancier rhythms and gothic chantey.
Ultimately this removes the edge that Oomph! had over their contemporaries as long time fans may find many of the riffs to be derivative of the groups earlier work. And it tones down their unique take down into the crowd of gothic inspired, German language symphonic industrial acts. So it feels like that the bands punk aspect has been replaced with a wet homage to Brazilian thrash instead of whatever the band were original influenced by originally. Die Toten Hosen maybe?
Thirty years writing and rewriting the same old songs; it seems like this tired old Ritual is the culmination of the bands dedication. But considering the quality of the groups earlier work and it’s prevalence throughout these new tracks it’s safe to say that iteration is truly the key to success.
8/10
