Album of the week: Die Ärzte - Hell

 

To the idea behind the album of the week, go here. 

After failing to listen to a new album for the last two weeks (due to being swamped at work; failure is part of the process), this week I carved out a little time to finally listen to some new music once more: German's notoriously famous (punk) band Die Ärzte's most recent record "Hell".

To be honest, listening to whole album was a blast. Musically diverse, self-assured, lyrically interesting and with a delightful sense of humour which seems to relish in making fun of itself, the time just flew by. And even though not every track sticks with you, every song in one way or another is (in the best sense of the word) interesting. Before listening to this record, I only knew a few odd tracks by them (the most famous ones), but I feel like that's going to change. Particularly their lyrics to me are either a) interesting, b) ludicrously entertaining or c) both at the same time. Just by listening to that record, you recognize that these are not your run-of-the-mill lyrics, but lyrics written by someone who was not on auto-pilot; I appreciate that.

Standout tracks: the humorous self-justification of "Wer verliert, hat schon verloren", the intimate "Leben vor dem Tod", the utterly catchy "Das letzte Lied des Sommers" and the ironic reflections of an artist in "Der Clown aus dem Hospiz".