Review Summary: Newcomers stay away from this album, this ones for the dedicated and hardcore fans.
KMFDM's third release, 'Don't Blow Your Top" can be easily depicted as the black sheep of their discography. In comparison with their previous effort, "What Do You Know, Deutschland?", DBYT isn't so 'dancy'. Also this album uses more guitars, and upgrades from simple drum loops to a little more complex percussion...just a TINY bit. Plus, DBYT gets old super quick and doesn't leave a lasting impression on your life.
So talking about the individual songs, Starting off with "No Meat, No Man" Is classic Raymond Watts a.k.a P.I.G. lyrical humor. It has a nice beat to it, and some guitars for a grungy industrial tone to it. The title track ,"Don't Blow Your Top", Is the highlight of the entire album (and most notably one of their first 'classic' songs along with 'More and Faster' and 'Kickin' Ass'). But the lyric content, believe it or not, is taken from FIVE different Frank Zappa songs (Most noteably, 'Dirty Love' and 'I'm The Slime'). Talk about plagiarism! "Killing" Is an okay track, just not much to say about this song. "Disgust" Is another highlight on the album. I don't know if it uses lyrics from Zappa like the title track, but they possibly couldn't have been written by KMFDM. At least not at THIS stage of their career.
From here on out, its a 'downward spiral'. Heh, get it? Nine Inch Nails? 'The Downward Spiral'? I hope you do...
"Oh Look" is just an instrumental that uses samples from a movie called "The Atomic Cafe". I pass. "King Kong Dub (Rubber Mix)" is godawful. Especially the beginning, where Sacha just yells in a weird voice. Its also the shortest song on the album, and for that we thank you KMFDM. "What a Race" and "No News" are instrumental fillers, the latter is kinda cache, but isn't a song that make you go "WOW!". "Tod Durch Bongo-Bongo" can be described in one word. BORING! Although its OK background music for a movie. "Killing (For Your Sampling Kit)" Is a pointless track that takes the drums and some bass from "Killing" and stretches it out into an eight minute track. EIGHT MINUTES!? My god! you could add two different songs that sound half decent in that space. The closer, "Oh ***" (or "Oh Look II" if you happen to own it on vinyl) is another instrumental that takes some vocals from "Don't Blow Your Top" at the end.
In conclusion, this album isn't All bad, just the majority of it is. If any KMFDM fan is asked the question 'Whats your favorite KMFDM album?' it would be uncommon for them to say "Don't Blow Your Top".
Key Tracks:
Don't Blow Your Top
Killing
Disgust
