Schreib es mit Blut

Tanzwut's latest album, Schreib es mit Blut, comes seventeen years after the bagpipe-loving band's inception. More industrial influence has crept into their sound over the years, giving them a sound that the casual listener might consider "Rammstein with bagpipes", and that's present here as well, making it more likely that one will think of a concrete-floored German industrial-metal venue than a medieval village when listening to this album. The bagpipes are generally used in place of what would ordinarily be a lead guitar. The title track is a very familiar Neue Deutsche Härte beat, but more interesting to me are the mid-tempo gothic stylings on Steig ein, or Reicher als ein König, which are more driving and rock-oriented tunes. In fact, the band puts together a fairly varied set of sounds here given their age and niche. You get lightweight, nervous-sounding violin with 8-bit synthesizer blips on one song, a coldly formal church organ on another, and the listener can even forget for a few minutes that he is listening to bagpipes, as they blend into the music fairly well after a while. Though their more modern influences get celebrated the most, the folk/medieval sound isn't completely forgotten; Stille Wasser's melody is the sort of thing Falconer might put together on a rainy day. Or perhaps Leaves Eyes before Liv Kristine got kicked out -- for as a bonus, they put a version of the song together at the end of the album where the lady herself shows up to sing the background vocals. This is a band that definitely knows how to write a melodic hook when they wish, as Wer wir sind and Neue Ufer both have triumphant choruses that could be at home in a power metal song. For the non-German listener, it's rather easy to miss the humor in some of these songs, though; on Hahnenkampf ("Cockfight" in English), for example, some of the background calls are a rather poor imitation of a rooster's crow. In some ways, Tanzwut reminds me of Alestorm, a band that started as a humorous endeavor and matured into something greater. Weird makeup and black-and-red getup aside, Tanzwut has mastered their niche and try a number of different approaches on their songs here, carrying it off every time.