New KMFDM Album: WWIII

Josh mentions that KMFDM just released a new album last Tuesday, WWIII. I was surprised to hear this at first, since supposedly frontman Sascha Konietzko had disbanded the band back in 1999 (hence the title of that year’s album, Adios).

Then, as if to say “ha-ha, fooled you!”, Sascha reformed a new band, MDFMK (yes, that’s “KMFDM” backwards). Now, it’s not as if MDFMK was just a wolf in KMFDM’s clothing; it actually had a slightly different — yet distinct — sound from KMFDM. And, I still really enjoyed MDFMK’s sound.

So, apparently Sascha reformed KMFDM. And, I was most curious about how their new album would sound — whether it would resemble the KMFDM of old, or whether it would continue along the progression of MDFMK. Fortunately, there’re some album reviews on KMFDM’s WWIII page. And, though not actually a review, this interview in Rhino Magazine was especially helpful (the interview is on page 14/16 of the PDF).

I expected the interview to be mostly fluff, but it was surprisingly informative. Early in the interview, the interviewer asks “KMFDM’s sound has evolved with each album. How would you compare the sound of WWIII with previous work?” Aha, that’s just the question for which I wanted an answer! However, I was a bit dismayed as I started to read Sascha’s response:

Well I would say it’s definitely a departure from the techno influence in the Symbols and Adios times. […]

Uh-oh… I really liked the direction they were going with Symbols and Adios, so that bit made me a little uneasy. But, Sacha continued:

[…] If anything, it’s more connecting to the sound of Nihil — the aggressive, drum-heavy, guitar-heavy other stuff with less of the techno programming in it.

Ah, no worries! So maybe it’s not quite like their recent albums, but Nihil is still one of my favorites (if I recall, that’s the album which introduced me to the band). It looks like I’ll have to add WWIII to my list of CDs-to-buy (and I’ll keep a lookout for it at the local used CD stores, though I don't expect to really find it there).