By Orren Merton

I don't remember who it was, but a rock luminary said of the Velvet Underground that only a few thousand people bought their first album, but every one of those people started a band. That is to say, that first Velvet Underground album was important. This MDFMK album is important.

KMFDM was one of the pioneers of of techno-industrial metal, a true original. Yet after fifteen years, KMFDM was in shambles, and threatening to retread the same old ground. Their last album, "Adios" lacked the fire of the previous album (Called "symbols" by the faithful). So Sascha Konietzko, the German co-founder and core member terminated KMFDM, took KMFDM recruit Swede Tim Skold (known previously for metal band Shotgun Messiah and his own industrial/rock band, SKOLD), and New York vocalist Lucia Cifarelli (Drill), and set out to pick up where KMFDM left off.

One thing that MDFMK is quick to point out is that they are more of a "band" than KMFDM, which became more of a rotating community of musicians than a group. This is immediately and gloriously apparent as the album has a cohesiveness that KMFDM lacked. The synthesizers, samples, and electronic beats are still there, but there is a consistency in the songwriting that the more disjointed KMFDM lacked. While some songs such as "Get Out of My Head" and "Control?" are mostly electronics and synthesizer driven, the emphasis is on metallic guitars and vocals carrying the melodies, with the techno elements as atmosphere and sonic shaping. This is not only noticeable in the sound (ably produced by Sascha, Tim, and Chris Shepard) but in the lyrics, which rather than ranging from deep to cheesy, are consistently intelligent, subversive, and powerful.

Tim notes "we wanted to pursue things a bit differently this time. The focus was on actual songs," and it definitely comes through. Each song has a singable chorus, and a hummable guitar line. Each song contains layers and layers of fast, techno-style electronics and samples, swooping

synthesizer pulses and chords, but always in the service of the song, never instead of or at the expense of the song. Sascha has never really been a singer, but he manages to growl and emote with a vigor and presence he hasn't exhibited for quite a while. Skold has a much more "melodic industrial" tone to his voice, which is used to good effect. In the hard but catchy "Be Like Me" Skold at first has the grit and anger to defiantly pronounce "I'd rather die than meet your demands" and then can melodically explain "I need to shed some skin, to be like me again," in a rather hooky chorus.

Lucia Cifarelli's vocal gymnastics--from rage to silky purring--add an additional welcome texture to the mix. Her melodic yet edgy vocal in "Get Out of My Head" is enough to take a song that almost falls into a "industrial pop-rock" category and turn it into something much more powerful and dramatic. Or towards the end of the spectacular industrial-metal "Witch Hunt"--a song in which Sascha and Tim angrily and frantically decry a civilization which terrorizes those who dare to veer from the mainstream --Lucia comforts, "you've always been different, you've spoken my mind," sympathizing with the listener with her soothing vocals.

Is this album perfect? Nothing is perfect--I personally have never liked albums that print incomplete lyrics or obscure them with the art. Despite the frenzied loops and electronics, some of the songs fall into a mid-tempo groove where a faster beat might inject even more adrenaline into them. But no song in this collection is a loser, and this album--like the Velvet Underground and Nico--is a blueprint. MDFMK shows us how contemporary rock songs can incorporate cutting edge sound design, elements of techno, pop, metal, etc. and maintain their vibrancy, relevance, and catchiness. If today's Backstreet/N'Sync generation of kids are too wrapped up in syrupy pop to give this album the commercial recognition it deserves, rock musicians in years to come will still refer to it. I heartily recommend MDFMK's album to absolutely everyone--this album is pure quality, as simple as that.