Album Review: Blackout Problems - 'DARK'
From the outset, German outfit Blackout Problem’s third album is nothing short of superb: grappling with issues ranging from political disillusionment, existential doubt and ecocentric annihilation to the notions of young love, teenage angst, and simply growing up. An incredible offering from an incredible band.
Formed in Munich in 2012, Blackout Problems are no strangers to the mysteries and magic of the new release. With three albums prior to this — one being a reworked version of their sophomore release, ‘Kaos’ — their discography is varied, vast, and vitriolic. Yet this, their third (proper) album — and their first on a major label — is something else.
First up comes the (appropriately capitalised) opening track ‘MURDERER’. The anguished track starts with nothing but a simple and swift staccato and a few crashes on a drum pad; it’s almost hard to reconcile it with the incendiary call-to-arms that the burning growl of Mario Radetzky creates. ‘The best politician is a dead one’, he cries, referencing the recent murder of a German politician and satirising his killer, a man with ties to both ultranationalist parties and neo-nazi groups; elsewhere, cries of ‘[b]ooks burn best when they’re freshly pressed’, reference the state-based dystopian and epistemological nightmare of Fahrenheit 451, highlighting the misinformation rife in these inflamed groups. Yet it’s hard not to read into the track, particularly in light of the recent events in the US. When there exist armed rioters spouting challenges towards democracy and storming the Capitol, fed by wholly false and incredibly dangerous lies from a (recently unseated) President, lyrics challenging the death of knowledge and announcing that ‘the best politician is a dead one’ take on an entirely new significance.
And that’s just one song.
The entire album is brilliant. There’s the energetic and emotionally charged BROTHER, exploring the rekindling of relationships past, of friends grown apart; the explosive LADY EARTH, an existential protest towards ecological demise from a zeitgeist grown disillusioned of hope, and the weltschmerz of said generation trying and failing to hold onto sanity; the cynical, violent and harsh DRIVEBY, electrically acerbic in its scathing anger towards the prevalence of ignorance in today’s society. Meanwhile, HEAVEN, with its layered and beautifully harmonised vocalists gives the image of a nameless congregation: the hard-hitting chorus of ‘Survive the depths of misery/ And solitude gets easy/ It slowly, slowly kills me’ becomes a heart-wrenching eulogy for lives lost to mental health.
That’s not to say that the band doesn’t stumble here and there. Take the emotionally charged ‘GERMANY, GERMANY’, in which the group decry the troubled history of their country; it perhaps might be a little too poppy to not come across as making light of the situation.
Yet it’s this poppiness that gives the album its beauty. What would title track DARK be, for instance, without the building tension of a fast-paced instrumentals leading to a clamorous, pit-inducing chorus? The cynicism-cum-optimism of the lyrics would seem empty if not for the prominent bass of the drum bad and auto tuned echoes.
Sure, the album isn’t perfect; Blackout Problems seem to at times struggle to balance their melancholy subject matter and bleak lyrics with the infectious energy of their instrumentals and the strength of Marino’s passionate voice. Yet it’s in this juggling that the band come into their own. A fantastic offering and one to revisit again and again.
Words by James O’Sullivan