KMFDM preview

KMFDM, Combichrist
House Of Blues, Chicago
Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Nine Inch Nails release something every six years. Al Jourgensen is retiring Ministry. KMFDM will never stop.

Of course, they’re a year removed from their last album, Hau Ruck (Metropolis), and currently working a remix EP, Ruck Zuck, so their prolificity isn’t exactly smothering. But the day Sascha Konietzko deals himself out will be one when the CD manufacturers union will finally be able to take their five-minute break. Like AC/DC with a drum machine and backpack full of S&M mags, Konietzko has built KMFDM from an underground, Wax Trax! fetish to a veritable institution. Industrial metal’s most reliable son is accompanied now by Lucia, less a dominatrix than her predecessors though still liable to kick ass.

Openers Combichrist simply would not exist without the headliners, but that’s like saying there’d be no Jet if there weren’t a Rolling Stones. The pet project of former Icon Of Coil member Andy LaPlegua, it has been equally prolific and lucrative with high placement on Billboard singles and German alternative charts, as well as selling out all 667 copies of the Kiss The Blade Halloween album within days. Current maxi-single “Get Your Body Beat” gets spliced and diced several ways, each nastier than the last.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly