Review Summary: If this would be a debut or a real new style the rating would be much higher, because the songs are very good and although the strange instrumentation should confuse, the songs are very logical and surprised me a lot.
The german punkrock started in the beginning of the 80ies and has always been a identical copy of american or british punkrock and so Die Goldenen Zitronen do so first. Although they hated playing political stereotypical phrases punkrock and tried to give it a new funny face, it was in the same league - musically as with its limited lyrical horizon.
But they changed their style drastically with their fifth output "das bißchen totschlag" (a little bit of manslaughter) away to a more radical approach. They forget about being funny and play songs against racism in a more innovative way by avoiding pointing at people and showing the scary face of normal german thinkings. But the main change is the change of the music style, which is now a conclusion of rap, jazz and indie inhaling the spirit of punkrock.
After three releases in this new style they forgot about writing good new songs. Still with the same arms they had good ideas but failed in writing an acceptable album. With the release of this album they found back their strength. This time with a bigger influence of electro-music they kicked out great songs like "positionen" (positions) with its straight forward beat or "aber der silbermond" (but the silvermoon) which is a strong diss against a german pop band. But one of the best songs on this is the opener which starts with a spacey organ and a discussion about the stagnation in relationships because no one feels free to talk.
The Song "Drop the Stylist" was sung by the british musician Mark Stewart (The Pop Group) and Melissa Logan of Chicks on Speed. The Song "Beautiful People" is a cover of Melanie Safka. At least I would like to say that the significance of this band is restored with this output.
