Diabolo Domination

The German gangster quartet Dustsucker is a hard, uncompromising, and at the same time very hard-to-swallow outfit. Frankly, I could call them “suckers” without a second thought, in the truest sense of the word, whose rattling has no effect whatsoever. Dustsucker, of course, don’t let that bother them. Fifteen years and six albums in, the guys are still happily preaching the gospel of rock & roll, which, judging by the sheer impotence of Diabolo Domination, still remains more or less a mystery to them.

 
Dustsucker name-drop icons of the musical past like Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, Molly Hatchet… the list is endless… somewhere in there you’ll even stumble over the name of Rory Gallagher! To be honest, you’d never guess any of that from the racket of Diabolo Domination. The closest we get to pinning down their sound is a genre mashup we’ve heard a few too many times, one that leads us, via heavy metal and classic rock, as always, straight to the predictable, MTV-style “punk”. Dustsucker do ride proudly, with solid production backing them up, but with no clear destination, unless the guys picked the kingdom of total madness as the final stop of their “odyssey”. There’s a real shortage of alternative destinations in their travel guide. Tracks like the opener Lost And Forgotten and Dig Your Own Grave quickly back that claim up. Live In Sin, for instance, is a pure-blooded Offspring imitation that even Dexter Holland would surely be too embarrassed to sign off on. And if you somehow manage to survive Mr. Farmer’s hysterical vocals, the opening bars of Land Of The King and Let The Good Times Roll will surely sneak in some moves straight out of the playbook of heavy metal legends Diamond Head!! A colorful genre kitchen, then, but one that’s totally tasteless and has no real impact.

Diabolo Domination is, in short, a predictable album, one that lacks energy and character and only rarely shows any symptoms of talent or even a cohesive musical vision. Surprisingly, Dustsucker still love to present themselves as a phenomenon proudly defying modern musical trends. So, if nothing else, the guys certainly don’t lack self-confidence, which, in the company of such an unoriginal approach, is admirable in its own way. In the end, Diabolo Domination pours Dustsucker’s drive into the otherwise monotonous thoughtlessness of this product, which, apart from the fortunately ever-rarer fans of mindless bashing, will surely fail to satisfy the spirit of even the most untamed music gourmets. Far from it!