KMFDM – Attak

Despite the lack of attention this album receives, I have always enjoyed it. Lots of favorites (to me) including Dirty, Preach/Pervert, Save Me, Sleep, Urban Monkey Warfare, and more. I’m surprised, after all these years, Attak hasn’t found its followers yet. Would be nice to upgrade to vinyl if it ever gets released. Definitely overdue for a ‘reconstruction’ as historians like to say. It’s worth it.

The first album of KMFDM 2.0. This was after a complete collapse of the band, and a reformation (Minus original and essential members En Esch and Gunter). I tried to review all the original studio albums, and wanted to make it to review this one, but this is where I got off. This isn't a horrible album, but isn't going to really stand up to the original albums, just as the majority of KMFDM 2.0 albums don't (but the tour album released at the same time was easily good enough to be on par with the original albums, and is definitely worth picking up). Probably the biggest crime of this album was it not being the once great and amazing KMFDM that appears to be permanently done at this point, which is really sad. This wasn't a bad album, but it was a mediocre album from a once amazing band. Had KMFDM released this in their original incarnation, it would have been at least as good as Adios, which while that doesn't say a whole lot since Adios wasn't anywhere near their best work, it says a lot from this era since KMFDM became a bit redundant after this, which in fairness to them is really hard not to do after a career spanning 3 decades at the time of this album (bands gotta pay the bills, keep the lights on), 4 decades at the time of this review. From this point forward KMFDM kind of became a family troop, as Lucia Cifarelli and Sasha ended up starting a relationship, and KMFDM more or less became just them as a couple as core members, it doesn't help that the genre that thrived in their original history was more or less dead at this point, many bands were either retired or in rehab, and KMFDM always thrived on outside participants. This was when KMFDM became how many albums can Lucia and Sasha put out in a short period of time, and how many members of PIG can KMFDM consume (Currently everyone but Sasha and Lucia are ex-Pig members). It's not to say that none of these albums aren't any good, some are good, some are even great, but bands can only go on so long and make anything that doesn't start to sound redundant after so many albums and years, especially when so many core members are long gone (En Esch and Gunter are now playing with Pig, which I can only imagine has something to do with the fact that Watts lost his entire backing band to KMFDM, leading one to think that a reunion isn't going to happen anytime soon). To say there is bad blood between all the original core members would be an understatement. Wax Trax! records did a reunion show a while back, and my understanding was there was so much bad blood, that the core members and collaborators from the original era did a show without even contacting Sasha, which is messed up when you consider it's really his band in the first place. I grew up a fan of this band, and I myself couldn't keep up with KMFDM 2.0, too many releases, and so many sound the same. It isn't fair to say that these albums aren't as good because En esch and Gunter, and Watts are long gone, since there is already original KMFDM albums missing all of them at one point or another, it could just be that every great band has only a finite amount of great albums in them, and KMFDM reached that already. Still, it's nice to see them still touring, and putting out new material, and most of it is at the least worth checking out, WWII isn't too bad, and feels like an attempt at an Angst 2.0, also specifically KMFDM Vs. SKOLD was definitely worth a listen, and is at least close to on par with Symbols in song quality. but KMFDM 2.0, has now released 13 studio albums, that's vs. the ten of the original lineup, so with that said, you either have to stop somewhere, or listen to far more KMFDM than some might be willing to. Personally, I don't think changing their name after MDFMK to something else would've been the worst thing in the world, but understandibly we're past the point of that being possible anymore. It's hard to say what their legacy is going to look like in ten years when they have ten good/amazing albums and twenty-something bad/mediocre ones. Still, you have to give them respect for outlasting just about every other 90's industrial band. I think if they can ever get passed all the bad blood and drama, KMFDM probably has one, maybe even a few more great albums in them, but only time will tell.