I can think, think, think and then eventually say something.
That's true. You can't say anything. It is so.
Only many don't think and still say something.
That's also true.
I'm falling back into the Berlin dialect, with which I described the first album of the Berlin band ACHT EIMER HÜHNERHERZEN in 2018.
The review can be read here:
https://www.ramtatta.de/s/reviews/f/details/id/8164/
I can think, think, think and then eventually say something.
This is the first line of the first song of the second album by the trio Apokalypse Vega, Herr Bottrop, and Bene Diktator, also known as ACHT EIMER HÜHNERHERZEN.
The first album hit like a surprise cake at a New Year's Eve party with its cheeky freshness.
The second album is, of course, burdened with many expectations. You want to do many things differently and better than you did on the first album. You have time to reflect on what worked and what didn't. Then the world turns, and all of that needs to be processed.
The will is definitely there.
The same studio was used, Studio B of Smail Shock (The Shocks).
The recordings took place at almost the same pace; instead of 2 days, the band took half a day more this time.
What came out?
The fourteen songs of “Album” do connect to the first album from my perspective, but they are more mature, more varied, not as fresh, more avant-garde than cheeky brat, more Dadaism than concrete accusation. Art has made its way into the three Berliners.
Of course, there are still the fresh songs, with their fatalism and their own unique humor. These are songs like “Gesellschaftstanz,” “Quittenbrause,” “Zement,” “Endlich fluchen,” and “Kein Lied für dich” (“Ein Lied für dich” by die Ärzte was the inspiration).
Then there are songs like “Wüstenplanet.” These compositions are more cerebral and fragmentary. This makes them harder to understand, which isn't necessarily bad, as it gets the brain working, but what does the band want to convey?
Is this sad now? Is it supposed to be this way? Or is it simply a kind of emptiness of adulthood and lost dreams? Well, one must say, especially in relation to Berlin, the lines
then the subway continued,
I see concrete faces,
and just an empty place,
where galaxies used to lie.
I'm thinking of the empty places that used to be places of culture and life.
Is that what you want? The question doesn't arise, at least not in “Wüstenplanet.”
It gets even more abstract with “Zahlen” and “Kozmic Schlüsseldienst.” As if no proper text wanted to come together. Somewhat unfortunate.
In summary, it can be said that there is a clear development of the band here. A development that will surely please some. However, what has been lost is the cheeky, brash freshness that made the first album so special, so extraordinary.
The “album” is thus a double-edged sword.
Making a judgment is therefore difficult.
ACHT EIMER HÜHNERHERZEN are somewhere between Berlin brat and intellectual minimalist punk.
