Krautrock, 'ey? Well, my only experience with an album of German rock music did not go so well. Unless you count laughing because the music was completely ridiculous. In fairness Kollaps was an album of industrial rock, which is nebulous until you hear it. But "krautrock?" Is that supposed to mean rock music mixed with... uh, kraut music?
Luckily, the first track is titled "Krautrock". It should give me a representative introduction to the genre, correct? Hmm... about 2 minutes in and all I've been treated to is a layered distorted drone with random noodling by guitars and a loop of a guy hitting a tambourine. Now 4-minutes in and little has changed, except the guy hitting the tambourine is varying it up by hitting the tambourine twice in succession. WEEEEE!!! I mean, crap. This better be building to something really awesome, because this song is 11 minutes long.
6 minutes. Nothing to report. I had no idea it was this easy to write music. Why have I bothered to learn all those chords on my guitar when I could have stuck with one? Finally at the 7-minute mark a drum kit joins the festivities to start playing a standard 4-time rhythm. At around 8:40 I could have sworn I heard a faint trace of laughter. In the ninth minute things turn slightly darker- it's the same drone but with minor chords playing on top. Things finally come crashing down right around 11:30 when all the musicians get tired and stop playing. What a complete was of time.
Song 2 is "The Sad Skinhead" and it opens with some guy yelping in pain. He was probably forced to listen to "Krautrock" on loop. The song is a more traditional goofy rock song in the mold of We're Only In It For The Money, except the singer has a German accent. I was really expecting the lyrics to be in German, but nope, they're in English. It's possible the only thing that makes krautrock worthy of the "kraut" prefix is the German accent used by the lead singer.
"Jennifer" starts out as a lame shoe-gazer, but the chorus, or what should be the chorus, features some neat orchestration that I hope will fill the rest of the album. But just 30 seconds later it disappears and the first verse repeats itself. The only thing the vocalist apparently has to say is, "Jennifer, your red hair's burning. Yellow jokes come out of your mind." It's so profound he repeats it three times. Around minute 4 the song turns into a distortion-fueled improve session before the song ends with a honky-tonk piano fade-out. I'm completely lost at this point.
Every now and then in the course of this project I ask myself... Is it me? Have I forgotten how to listen to music? Faust IV contains a lot of influence from psychedelic music and has neat passages here and there, but there's not enough structure holding it all together. Either I've forgotten what great music is or "great music" isn't all that great to begin with.
Interesting note on the copy I streamed from Rdio. The fifth track "Giggy Smile" was listed as being 4:28 long. The Rdio player shows the time elapsed on the left and total length on the right. So through the song the time on the left was counting up and getting closer to 4:28 shown on the right.Then 4:28 came and went and the song kept going. Now both counters are counting up together. I've never seen that happen. I don't mind too much because "Giggy Smile" is thus far my favorite track on the album. It does go on a while too long, but is at least competent and lively. I was quite a bit shocked when the song abruptly cut out at the end by some guy speaking German.
You know, on second thought, I don't like the idea that songs on Rdio can run past their advertised running time. A lot of time I spend listening to these songs I look at the running time to say to myself, "You can make it through this. It's only X minutes of your life." If those values can lie to me, my sanity might be at stake. Hey, wait a minute... I just glanced down at my iPod and this song is doing that too. It was only supposed to be 4 minutes long. Why are we pushing past the 6-minute mark? And for what are we doing this? A closing drone? Ugh. For the record, the song was almost twice it's advertised length.
ACK! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE?!? "It's A Bit Of A Pain" features an overdub of that sound your alarm clock is known for using to wake you up, except it plays it in a long blare, rather than a short burst. It's not just a bit of a pain, it's a goddamn migraine.
Fuck Faust IV. That's all I can say. 2 stars. I know, that's not the rating you'd expect after that sentiment, but there were genuine parts I liked.
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