KMFDM - Let Go (Metropolis Records)

As the title track kicks the album off in a blaze of industrial strength grooves, futuristic dance floor rhythm, digital deliciousness and analogue authority, you immediately realize why KMFDM have stayed in the game for so long.

Celebrating their 40th year with their 23rd album, LET GO sees them at a peak that few artists can even dream of conquering, and they do so with suitably blistering and confident album to match such an achievement.

And if the opener proves that dance music can have bite and balls too, then “Push,” which follows, pushes (pun intended) dancefloor culture into almost metal realms. It feels like a challenge to those beardy metalhead purveyors of earnest, monolithic rock music, saying, “Not only can we rock as hard as you, we can do so whilst employing killer dance grooves and addictive rhythms. Beat that, suckers!” Well, that’s what I hear, anyway.

But there is room on the album for plenty of shifting moods and pace. “Next Move” is heavy yet spacious, full of intensity and delicate electronic lines, “Touch” rides with subtlety and suppleness through the outer fringes of purer dance realms, and WW 2023 sees the band taking their digital dance devotions and crash headlong into ska and reggae realms, to excellent and intriguing ends.

KMFDM are a band that plays by their own rules, and those rules seem to require them to make music that rocks harder than the long-haired guitar fraternity, grooves harder than the most dedicated dance devotees, is more infectious and beguiling than any pop creation, blends digital invention with analogue tradition and balances abrasiveness with anthemic beauty. And if that is the case, then they pass with flying colours.

LET GO album order
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CD order
Vinyl order
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