Dear readers, colleagues, and all others who are also not interested: Since I often write too positively about albums (due to the fact that I only pick the good ones), I have now decided to introduce a new system. All records from my personal collection will be selected completely at random (except for the newest ones, which will be addressed shortly) and reviewed! Hooray, this is something you probably never wanted to know.
Be that as it may: Since my taste in music is by no means perfect, I will naturally also come across a few albums in the "bad" category... and it was here that the first candidate "Loikaemie – We Are the Skins..." fell into my hands...
Not that it is a particularly bad record: No, it is not... "plain" is probably more accurate. "Loikaemie" makes Oi! music in the most direct sense and conveys this credibly both lyrically and musically. Unfortunately, credibility – as is often the case in my reviews – is not a particularly positive quality indicator here.
The music, aside from the bass, which plays really fine tones, is very restrained and exists at the sad level of "little recognition" and "everything has been heard before." Only the songs "We Come into the World" and "Poor Pig" stand out a bit due to their lively rhythm. However, the powder is quickly spent here as well...
But it gets even thicker: The lyrics fit perfectly into the existing picture and create a perfect boredom-symbiosis that gives this music its sad face. It is ONCE AGAIN about the old, dusty, and seemingly never-ending themes: Violence (a glance at the cover is enough), drinking, or "I-am-free/violent/independent-and-therefore-much-cooler-than-you." Even though I agree with the message against Nazis (although I am not sure under what motivation this happens... it seems more like they are just annoyed that the poor Loikaemie people had their clothing style stolen), I still dislike this eternal whining about the "apolitical character" of the scene. Terrible! It looks more like a desperate "We want to belong too and will do anything for it" in the sense of the finest press sausage mentality.
Not only was the choice of themes a deep dive into the toilet, but also the choice of words. Awful:
"It is my right to enforce my will / If necessary with violence, I will go to the end"
"If you interfere in a matter that you actually have nothing to gain from / Then it happens that there are people who will knock you flat for it"
"Screamed ideals like 'Fucking, Drinking, Oi!' / These are our roots / And we remain true to them"
"Politics is something for the weak, for all those who hide and whom we then laugh at / As long as there are extremes that didn't always exist, we will stand, remember that, we were much earlier there"
These and other lines await those listeners who wanted to dive into a new musical experience completely unprepared. Don't worry: There is still much more (not worth seeing) to discover, whether musically or lyrically. Once again, the one-dimensionality of certain bands that have dedicated themselves to the "Oi!" scene becomes clear, although I don't want to say anything against the scene itself. Unfortunately, it seems to me too often that stupid hollow slogan bands gain a foothold and then spread their crap among the people. What a shame, the time could actually be used much better...
The record itself is only bearable in a promille coma, for which it apparently was made anyway. However, anyone who wants to enjoy slogan pseudo-identification music without a brain and expectations could find something here (which probably says enough about the topic "Not that it is a bad record...").
By the way, for those looking for an apartment: A basement apartment has just become available above the level of this CD. Nice.
