Published on Dec 31, 1998
I knew there was a reason why I hadn’t listened to Nitzer Ebb’s
That Total Age in almost a decade. The fact that it had
several layers of dust on it and it had been buried way in the back
of the Pierce Archives (right next to the Billy beer) should have
been warning sign number one. Too bad I don’t listen to those
little warning voices in my head.
Once considered to be one of the big names in industrial music,
Nitzer Ebb has not withstood the test of time – and, for that
matter, 1987’s
That Total Age was outdated by the time it came out.
Oh, sure, you could claim that this band was one of the pioneers
of the genre, and pioneers of music like this never sound as
complex as the bands who build upon that sound. Basically, every
single one of these ten songs follows the same formula: Find a
keyboard and drum machine rhythm, and repeat it for about five
minutes, puncuated with occasional screams that double for
vocals.
Pioneering? Bullshit. Bands like Front 242 and Ministry existed
at this time as well, and they were doing things even more
complicated than this primitive nonsense. It almost was like
someone had been given a cheesy Casio keyboard, and was learning to
play it by using the pre-programmed rhythms in it. Whatever the
case, the sound is incredibly bad.
Even the one song I originally bought this tape for, “Join In
The Chant,” doesn’t have the kind of magic it had when I blindly
walked into Crow’s Nest in Crest Hill and snagged this one. I mean,
this particular song is okay when listened to once every decade or
so, I guess. But there’s no excuse for making an album that follows
the exact same pattern – wait, scratch that – the exact same bad
pattern the whole time!
How bad does it get? There were times during songs like “Violent
Playground,” “Smear Body” and “Warsaw Ghetto” that I seriously
wanted to cut up the speakers in my car, if only to assure I didn’t
have to listen to the rest of this tape.
That Total Age is bad… I mean, really bad. The hell with
this noise; avoid it.