Artist: Schelmish
Title: Die Hassliechen Kinder
Type: Album
Label: Napalm Records

Despite having released over half a dozen albums in almost a decade, I only heard the name Schelmish upon the Napalm Records signing announcement. These Germans certainly look an interesting bunch; a real mixed one at that with only a couple looking metal, then you’ve a punk, a Dawn French look-alike, and a singer who frankly I’m guessing isn’t on first name terms with either the shower or shaver. Now, I couldn’t make my mind up on this, I really couldn’t. I must confess to being somewhat bored with this whole medieval folk malarkey; too many bands with not enough talent, especially those absurdly jolly ones that insist on using bagpipes et al. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just my general ennui that tarred my opinion, but after trying to look from every possibly angle and get into this, this album has given me the justification I need as to why I have grown so tired of this scene right now.

The album maunders in with ‘Bist Du Berit’ which admittedly has me a bit intrigued. My other half, a massive Samael fan, sat in on the second listening and instantly began to get excited; with its dark Germanic vocals and dry-ice aura I can understand why although as he proceeded to ask for this for Christmas I have to calm him down and forewarn that the rest of the album is as far removed from Samael as you could possibly get. See, this is the real big problem here; there are some parts that I really find myself enjoying but there is just no consistency. In layman terms, this album is all over the place; it’s as though they’ve taken a big dollop of In Extremo, a dash of Rammstein, a touch of Blink 182 and a sprinkling of latter day REM…I could go on…and just not bothered to mix them in together, left them dotted around here and there and left one hell of a mess. Clearly this is one of those bands that thinks its cool to have varied influences and to not stick with one sound in particular, but this just makes it incredibly difficult to get into.

‘Uberladen’ has a nice bounce to it that actually makes me want to move, and there’s quite an industrial beat behind it. I also like the twinkly keyboards on this one and adds a bit of character. Still I’m not sure the bagpipes and other high pitched instruments are really right and find they do grate against my ears quite a bit. Unfortunately these are a major part of their sound and continue to annoy me through even the most appealing tracks. ‘Goresh’ has a really funky dance beat and slack bassline that I enjoy, which soon leads into a ‘Hey na na’ sing-along that kind of brings to mind ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ I imagine this is one that will go down well at gigs when the majority of the plastic-sword and mead-horn equipped crowd are beyond blotto. ‘Strangers’ is a surprising number; I like the female vocals on this one and the dark, gothic tones really add to the sound. The simplistic, light and airy guitars on ‘Die Hasslichen Kinder’ and ‘Blahsucht’ gives a pop-punk feel which will no doubt earn them a bit of abuse from the metal crowd, but still I’m sure they will gain a good reception at the likes of BOA. This could be a lot better if they had a more distinct sound, but in all honesty, I’ve heard more consistency on a Fear Candy compilation.

http://www.myspace.com/schelmishband

Luci Herbert

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