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Most punk rock makes me want to drink beer and raise a fist in raging solidarity. Berlin, Germany’s Herpes make me want to drink beer (duh, they’re German), but instead of angry fist-waving, I want to flail ludicrously around the room in much the same way that The Fall make me wiggle all willy-nilly like I’m on an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba or something. Their music is a mix of treble-y guitars, new wave synths, insistent rhythms and talking-loud-in-German vocals, which are one part Mark E. Smith and one part Mark Mothersbaugh.
In some ways, the songs on Das Kommt Vom Küssen (German for “What you get from kissing,” haha) remind me of the more pop-oriented songs of Six Finger Satellite and possibly even Chrome, though their music is most firmly rooted in the aforementioned Fall, early Berlin (which is kinda funny, considering), early Missing Persons and, yes, Devo – oh, and Kraftwerk of course. (Perhaps some Wire, too, but I’ll leave that judgment to you.) Some people would call it art-punk, but Herpes are too unselfconscious and unpretentious for such a label. It’s just good, fun rock’n‘roll the way it should be, with a few twists and turns thrown in to keep it from getting boring (also, incidentally, the way it should be).
I plan on following Herpes’ career to see where it goes. I know that this debut is only the beginning of some fantastic music to come.
