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Radio Goethe Volume 4 Radio Goethe IV is the 4th (obviously) in a series of German music compilations brought to us by Arndt Peltner and financed through the German Consulate. It is also a close rival to my, up till now favorite edition - RG III! I was told that I could make this review short by saying that it included Samsas Traum and thus ruled but I'll try to make this a bit more comprehensive. ;) Radio Goethe IV is a double CD which includes 32 artists. It's dedicated to Christoph Renne from Sonic Front who died last year at 28 from cancer and the first song, "Wave Goodbye" by Sonic Front was written with this in mind... A rather sad way to begin but certainly a proper tribute and a powerful song, especially knowing the story behind it. I was afraid this might be setting a theme but it was unjustified. "Adrenalin" by Elke really rocked!!! I liked it so much that I'm hoping they have more of the same! Snakeskin's "I am the dark" was just a tad bit bizarre... Sounds like it was made by people called Snakeskin, with satanic noises and weird singing... It started to grow on me as I listened but I'm still scratching my head over it, or maybe it gave me a rash, not sure... anyway... next was "Königin der Nacht" by IFF featuring Alexx, 'nuff said! If it has Alexx (Eisbrecher, ex-Megaherz) it's good stuff by default!! Sounds like a very Alexx-y song, what more can I say? "Dein Kuss" by Nik Page was pretty cool, kind of pop goth or something, whatever and "K.haos - Prinz und Wind - Prinzessin" by Samsas Traum was a good upbeat song by an excellent artist! Next was Ancient Gallery / Kamikaze52 with "Very hard to" - a quite decent song we've heard many times on Radio Goethe. Heavy guitars but kind of slow and gloomy. "Jajaja" by Davantage seemed a bit heavy handed w/ the synthesizer as the vocals were almost drowned out by them but that's probably just me anyway... I prefer electronics as flavoring to conventional instruments, not as replacements... This will come up later ;) "Das Boot" by Echolot sounded so much like Rammstein & some earlier Megaherz to me that I found the similarities much too distracting... "Soma" by Nail was alright, a bit too mainstream sounding, though. Megaherz's "Gott Sein '04" was obviously very rocking! A re-make of an old classic with their new singer Mathias. "Silhouette Paintings" by Kingdom Come started out very pretty but then this guy started singing... made me think of 80's hair band ballads. Pass. Fiddler's Green is always a fun medieval sounding band so "Tarry Trousers was quite nice! "Wer, wenn nicht ich" by Geist was deep and heavy sounding though it picked up the pace eventually but the next song I didn't quite "get"... "Schmützige Hände" by Stendal Blast but it's a Dein Schatten Remix... that I understand, but it sounded like Dein Schatten/Dieter was singing on it... I didn't know that was part of the normal remix "thing" but I'm sure I'm completely wrong anyway... I have an aversion to remixes normally so... what do I know? ;) Reminded me of a Falco song for some reason... Next was "Sasha (Sex Secret)" by 2Raumwohnung... it wasn't so bad considering I don't much care for female vocals and had some strong beats... Last song on CD 1 was "Wenn ich tanze" by Enno Palucca... I know he's not making me dance but anyway... CD 2: First song on the second CD is "The Last Dream" by Faust... I'm not a fan of Faust but it started out promising enough & kind of stuck there & didn't move much & I saw there were almost 7mn of this so I just moved on... "Allein" by k.d.a was ok but was also in this same electronic vein... a pattern was exposing itself! *covers eyes*! "Rivals" by Die Farben was more of the same ilk & was 7.5 mn long, GiH!!!! (I know there are much longer but that's too much already in mn anyway!) "Phase IV" by Weltraumorgel, "Lustige Riesen" by Weltraumservice"... more of the same... "Express" by Polyspace, well, it at least had some piano soundish music that made it seem like it embraced conventional instruments at times... All those songs are getting shoved into the corner & getting ignored!!! "The Key to your World" by Catastrophe Ballet was kind of dull poppish blah but it did rescue me from electronic hell so all is forgiven ;) Next was "Mon-Key" by The Invisible Spirit... a rather silly repetitious club type song telling us "The monkey won't cry, the monkey won't die"... I guess that's a good thing! Weird but sort of amusing. Lacrimosa's "Der Morgen danach" wasn't so bad considering I've never really been a fan of their's... "Hymnus Cantica" by Corvus Corax is medieval type music, not bad. Merlons Lichter's "Weltenlauf" continued with the medieval influenced sounds of Corvus Corax but started out with a heavy bagpipe sound or what I imagine is a bagpipe, I dunno... too bad they had to start singing, completely ruined the effect! Next came "Hofgang" by Infamis... made me think of spaghetti westerns or something... it was ok... Better than the rest!!! "Liebe ist" by Toni Kater was a boring female singing a slow boring song, like the title wasn't bad enough!!! & Regy Clasen's "Fischer Fischer" was even worse!!! I don't even know how to describe it, like new age-y uck or something! Keep away!!! The last song... self titled by Freideuter, at least moved away from the icky females but it was also nothing impressive, kind of boring... In any case, there's alot to pick through and $5 plus shipping is well worth the cost even you just liked a couple bands! I liked much more than a couple bands but I do think I'll be playing CD 1 alot more than CD 2 unless I really have the need to hear how "the monkey won't die" because that was, in my opinion, the best song on the second CD and that's not saying a whole lot ;) Mikki Landers 7/05 Get it from: |
