Limbo Messiah

 Empirical proof of a band’s quality is its ability to survive creatively, plus the endurance test of defying the teeth of time. In 1995, the young Berliners Beatsteaks weren’t weighed down by anything. In the name of a good time and full-blooded punk, riding the modern wave of reviving half-dead genres and pumping them back to full life, they picked up their instruments and started writing their own pages of success. Vocalist and occasional guitarist Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss built a rep in those years as a quality frontman who sounds anything but weak or unconvincing. Out of the distortion-smeared patches of Bernd Kurtzke’s and Peter Baumann’s guitars, plains of polished, crystal-clear sound began to emerge, wooing somebody other than punk purists too. The band’s new rhythmic heart also dug itself firmly into the core, and it took on something more challenging than monotonous thrashing through the fills. Thomas Götz brought polyrhythm to the band or, if you like, steered punk arrhythmia into more synchronous waters. And bassist Torsten Scholz actually learned how to play bass and catch rhythmic patterns up and down the neck. After 12 years, Beatsteaks have matured into sincere, successful, recognizable musicians and top-notch showmen. Let’s leave the clowning aside and focus on the new album, released on Warner, Limbo Messiah.

I won’t lie, so I’ll confess right away: this album won my enthusiasm and attention after the very first listen, because Beatsteaks have outgrown the expected stereotypes and produced a very tasty pop product that can still show sharp, freshly whetted teeth. It’s the fifth album from the Berlin quintet, who already captured the hearts and ears of the masses in March with an invasion of ‘Jane Became Insane’ sounds from your small screens and radio speakers. What matters is that they managed to keep the purity of musical simplicity and very addictive riffs, while also pushing the limits of their abilities more consistently than on Smack Smash or on the album Living Targets. Arnim has opened up every register in his vocal cords and served up a wide palette of vocal performances. The tempo and melodies of the individual songs are also fully thought out and calibrated for total success.

The album kicks off with a fairly fluid, crystal-clear testosterone landing in the form of the song ‘As I Please’. “You don’t guess my name / But I came to rearrange /Gotta put yourself at ease / I do exactly as I please” is the opening mantra that announces a party. The basic commandment of Limbo Messiah is therefore total looseness and following the impulse to have fun and dance. No intellectualizing. It’s just a list of fun escapades that lost their first-person angle and somehow grew into little stories that can entertain any listener. That’s exactly why the story of a snobby girl who kinda “lost it” in the form of ‘Jane Became Insane’ is the album’s perfectly natural state. It’s as if you tossed a pinch of Sublime and Clash into the same bowl, ran them intravenously through a tincture of some Fun Loving Criminals, then piped it all through a dialysis machine into the Beatsteaks machine. Bouncy and danceable in a simple way, for the unsuspecting passerby who follows only the rhythm and the nonviolent melodics of a gentle switch-off. ‘

Sharp, Cool & Collected’ drives its long, artificially aged tusks straight into the center, and I’d bet this is their speed record, since the guys have never pushed so hard toward the emergency exits marked end of song. If that knocked you off balance, the next track sets it right – ‘Meantime’, which plays melodically with Pixies melodics. Love and estrangement: “In the meantime / You’re in between time.” Tuneful and easy to remember. ‘Demons Galore’ is devoted to the “mind your own business” principle, while the voyeuristically exposed individual, shining in everyone’s sight, becomes the main object of entertainment and gossip, left with nothing but a pile of bones picked clean to white. We all have our demons. Beatsteaks’ demons push you to dance and drink the Irish way, and in the circle of dancers there’s no room for slackers and wafflers.

Much calmer and almost frothing in a Gorillaz style, the throbbing dub reggae sound of ‘Cut Off The Top’ catches you off guard, with a chorus that lights up in your subconscious. “Climb This Mountain To Cut Off The Top / Damage, damage …/ First I swallow then I throw up / Damage, damage …Come and try me falling apart / Damage, damage … / Climb This Mountain To Cut Off The Top / Damage, damage …” Cheeky and endearing. Like a dedication to punk of the past. ‘Bad Brain’ is a gorgeous overture so you can taste a bit of deeper contemplation in an R&B direction without getting a sugar rush. ‘She Was Great’ can easily surprise old fans and knock the socks off newcomers who think they came to a Pink concert. It’s an intelligent joke and a transparent showcase of musical power and vocal sensuality. The conciseness and the urge to hook you like a junkie on junk after the first shot is more than obvious.

So here come the sentimentality and the racing rhythm of seeming headlessness. ‘Soljanka’ once again gives the sleepy spirit a slight erection, and after ‘Hail The Freaks’, which has almost a QOTSA groove of desert punkism, it’s time for the big finale – ‘E-G-O’ sinks its teeth into the soft, pliant flesh one last time, and this time it’s the garage sound that leaves its mark on you, finally wiping out the last remaining trenches in a way I’d normally expect from the likes of Kaiser Chiefs or Franz Ferdinand rather than Beatsteaks, yet this time it comes across completely effortless and natural. Just as it’s logical that the next track could be totally MC-style rapped, or that on the bonus material a disco ball would drop from the ceiling of your room, and you’d start doing the duck dance in a high afro and glamorously tall space boots to one more salvo of Beatsteaks sounds. Quite likely and not so impossible.

The album Limbo Messiah is a time machine, in which Beatsteaks offer you, in a condensed half-hour marathon, even more than a ton of stereotypes you’ve already heard, although the end result is pretty similar – they serve you a ton of stereotypes plus melodies and rhythms you’ve heard somewhere before, only this time arranged in a well-thought-out and totally new way. And old becomes new. And Beatsteaks hang another trophy from their belt: a phenomenal album that, despite everything, can surprise you and, resistance be damned, get you dancing, singing and having a blast. Damn it! What are you going to do with your antidepressants now?