Aaaah, Germany and its ‘industrial / NDH’ scene made up of the more or less glorious descendants of OOMPH!, Rammstein and Eisbrecher, who recycle the same martial rhythms, the same virile obsessions (big factories, big ships, war and big robots from the future) and the same gravelly humour to the point of self-parody... it's as popular as it is irritating, with purists inevitably gnashing their teeth every time the label ‘industrial’ is applied to each and every band who sticks a few electro beats on guitar riffs. Yes, but Hasswut are one of the small exceptions in this scene: they're Spanish. What difference does that make? None. Or a lot, maybe. We don't really know and to settle the question, we'd have to think. And "thinking" is a big word. Don't be fooled, you don't listen to Hasswut to use big words. Hasswut (that you can translate roughly by HATE RAGE) are back with their fourth album in ten years, Sauerstoff. Play it loud. Hit things. Break stuff.
HATE RAGE beginning Sauerstoff album with Sauerstoff song. Big anger, big hate, mammoth guitars, boom-boom-boom, lyrics chanted in German, big deep voice... We've heard it all a thousand times before. Then, all of a sudden, Daniel NQ gets angry behind his microphone, the synths take centre stage and go doot-doot and Hasswut pull off the impossible: cheer us up and get us on board. The melodies are simple, but the balance between real rage and cyber-futuristico-festive off-beat works. The message is social, we're told. There's a slightly theatrical feel to it, a sense of being in a circus of drunken monsters doing a frenetic dance. It's FUN.
Sauerstoff is full of little advantages that make it more digestible than expected. Probably the sometimes blatant aggrotech roots (Vorsicht Zerbrechlich) mean that the electro parts have more interest than usual in the genre, or at least exist long enough to inject their energy, their oxygen (‘sauerstoff’ in German, you know). When Hasswut get heavy, they really go for it (the aptly named Koloss). There's enough soul in the mechanical rhythms: it's never aseptic or lazy, and Hasswut regularly surprise us (Les Morts and its highly successful ambience). Sauerstoff is short: there's no time for repetition or boredom, right up to Eigengrau, whose female vocals and sobbing add extra variety.
In the end, despite its colourful cover, despite its strong roots in a genre codified to the point of being boring, Sauerstoff is a satisfying album, something wicked and fun enough to satisfy our most primitive instincts. Its compact length avoids repetition and allows each track to be relevant. In short, it's a good job, entertaining, honest and sufficiently full of life. And what's more, they spare us the sad-emotional-broken-hearted-soapy-boring love song! We went in expecting to grumble and make fun of it, but we came out wanting to go back!
