Nachtmahr – Verboten!
Nachtmahr – Verboten!
Trisol Music Group GmbH
Release Date: 01/11/24
Running Time: 38:20
Review by Dark Juan
8/10
My left arm is being licked mercilessly by one of the Smellhounds as he has clearly decided that I am not allowed to share my thoughts with you about music. He has also unplugged my pooter twice because of the ridiculous zoomies he is currently having in the lounge of Crow Cottage.
It is a burden I must bear, however, because the little fucker is a tiny emotional dictator who knows the absolute limit he can push your patience to before reverting to an incredibly cute bundle of cuddles.
He is now sitting on the floor looking at me with eyes that appear to have tripled in size because I have stopped fussing him. Please excuse me for a brief moment as I must deal with this situation with belly rubs…
Greetings, I am Dark Juan, and I am the abject slave of my dogs. Finally, the little sod has left me alone long enough to do a bit of work! It is time, therefore, to extricate the Platter of Splatter ™ from the recess where it is confined and reverently place an offering upon it, with all the ceremony and ridiculous robes (today, Second Invocation Robes [Autumn Weight]) I wear when doing so. Today, grasped in my sweaty paw, I have the latest release from Austrian Electronic Industrialists Nachtmahr, entitled “Verboten!”
It is titled thus because main man Thomas Rainer has something of a… complicated relationship with the scene that his music is a part of, claiming that they feel that “He is the bogeyman of a scene that is only superficially unconventional but quickly nips any revolutionary spirit in the bud. He was hated, he was condemned, he was put down, he was discredited.”
This was because his shows have a very militaristic aspect, with uniforms being the norm, and his being an enthusiastic Austrian patriot. None of which Dark Juan has a problem with, especially considering Dark Juan’s last stage attire was the black shirt and dog collar of a priest, military fatigue trousers and fuck-off big German paratrooper boots. Oh, and a skull mask with demonic sigils carved into it. No-one appeared to have a problem with uniforms and blatantly Germanic posturing when Mushroomhead were all in the same uniform and Laibach were aping Leni Riefenstahl visuals. Anyway, Industrial music has a very martial feel due to the timing of it generally being march tempo and let’s face it, dressing up is fucking cool. Otherwise, there would be no Ghost. Or Judas Priest for that matter. Or Dark Juan, although many of you would see that as a blessing, doubtlessly. Anyway, Nachtmahr is back with a new album and Thomas is fucking raging at everything as usual, over a musical style that owes as much to VNV Nation as it does to Combichrist, Grendel and Suicide Commando with added Metal guitars. The album is very much classic Electronic Industrial/ EBM in sound and rather to Dark Juan’s taste! Mainly being as I have been an Electrohead for many, many years and cut my teeth on Electronic music in the era of Psyclon Nine and God Module and Christ Analogue.
The music is supremely danceable Techno/ Industrial with an admixture of heavy riffing which people who favour goggles with biohazard symbols, multicoloured dreadlocks, Hello Kitty handbags, very tight PVC and fucking massive fluffy boots are going to adore it, and the vocals and lyric just reinforce the long held view of Dark Juan that German is by far the best language to sing in when you are playing aggressive music, simply because it is a guttural and just sounds… well, fucking aggressive really, and this is ably displayed on ‘Blut’, which pounds at the solar plexus of the listener like a pneumatic drill and is very much in the vein of the more aggressive Aggrotech version of EBM. Imagine Combichrist getting bloody in a fistfight with Ultraviolence and Aphex Twin while Unter Null cheer them on in a battle to the death, droplets of blood flying off pistoning fists as they crunch into pulped flesh and broken cartilage until their opponents drop to the sand of the makeshift ring they are fighting in.
There are moments of light and shade on “Verboten!” though, and it isn’t just stomping around and screaming in the face of innocent passers-by from a distance of an inch or so. ‘Spuren Einer Nation’ is evidence of this with a clear influence of Neue Deutsche Härte in the guitar work over hard-as-fuck beats and a guttural chant on the chorus that is just perfect to bellow at the top of your lungs (although, being British, and as my German friend Steffi has noted on several occasions, I’ll be getting EVERY SINGLE WORD of it wrong).
Just as an aside, my media player has either gone completely wrong, or Thomas has an abstruse sense of humour as it is displaying a picture of a creepy-uncle-vibe-giving chap called Helge who is unironically wearing a merchant sailor officer’s cap and has what can only be described as a predatory smile while holding a saxophone as it is playing Nachtmahr’s music. If it is the former, then well done, Microsoft, for being useless. If it is the latter, then nice one, Thomas, because you have successfully creeped me out, you weird bastard!
Album opener ‘Sirenen’ is a proper stomp-a-thon that you’d imagine the German Army playing through loudspeakers in a shock-and-awe campaign as they advance into the attack. It is all oiled muscles and bellowing M60 machine guns, whereas ‘Gegen’ puts the guitars away for a full-on Electronic assault very much in the old vein of Aggrotech, as is ‘Luzifer’, all punishing beats and gross sexuality – music for BDSM dungeons and people who like inflicting pain. The soundtrack to pale, trembling flesh blooming with scarlet as the skin is opened up with barbed whips and the person suffering moans with a complicated combination of pain and orgiastic pleasure…
In short, then, Nachtmahr have made a record that’s equal parts militarism in music and disturbingly fucking sexy. This is the sound of the inside of my head – mechanical clattering and banging, the whining of electrical motors overlaying the moans of people at the brink of orgasm.
Yeah. I like Nachtmahr because the music is sexy and fuck the haters. This music is right up my street, and I must be honest, I dig uniforms. Especially ladies in uniforms for… reasons, so they get style points as well.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Das patentierte Dark Juan Blood Splatter Rating System, für meine guten deutschsprachigen Freunde! Eines Tages werde ich nach Deutschland und Österreich kommen und euch alle mit wirklich schrecklichem Deutsch terrorisieren, wenn ich versuche, mit euch allen zu sprechen. Ich habe es bereits mit den Franzosen gemacht, und sie fanden Französisch mit Yorkshire-Akzent einfach sehr amüsant…) awards Nachtmahr 8/10 for a record that pleases mightily but has had the usual mark deducted for not being Metal, but instead Metal-adjacent. One more mark is deducted simply because I am a contrary fucker. Nah, it is because this is not an album that pushes the boundaries of Metal or Industrial very far, as enjoyable as it is.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Sirenen
02. Gegen
03. Luzifer
04. Keine Lieder
05. Stimme In mir
06. Nachtetüde
07. Amboss Und Hammer
08. Der Schwarze Mann
09. Wiedersehen
10. Blut
11. Spuren Einer Nacht
LINE-UP:
Thomas Rainer – Everything.
LINKS:
