Search - Nitzer Ebb :: Big Hit

Not very good, Not very good at a,ll

glommy glom glom | 06/02/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Here we have our boys making the record they have been wanting to make for a long time: A "ROCK" record. It seems to me that good "rock" records require a few key ingredients: Strong steady beat, catchy guitar riffs, catchy lyrics, and a good voice.

Unfortunately, Harris/McCarthy fall flat on all these things. Doug is trying to sing, but he can't. The beats are nothing but sampled acoustic drum loops (and obviously so). The lyrics are abismal, excluding some of the lyrics from "Cherry Blossom", and "kick it"- the album's best song. A few times throughout the album I can hear the fat synth lines and bass notes that give me reason to keep coming back to Nitzer Ebb. Here, though they mainly act as drizzle on a scone. Its a uncomfortable mix that few artist seem to do well, i.e. NIN, late Ministry.

But tour boys have always loved American rock music, as exemplified in "Showtime". Though they got the parts together, it does not hold together. Finally, the boys have nothing to say after all these years."

A sad end

D. M. MATALLIN | Valencia, Spain | 04/08/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"'Big Hit' is the less representative album of Nitzer Ebb, a very interesting EBM band which are next to Front 242 as the best in their style. It's not a bad album, it starts really good: 'Cherry blossom' is a very interesting song which presented us the new Ebb sound: distorted guitars which sound as electronics. 'Kick It' is more rock but really catchy song; 'I Thought' is a quiet ballad ending with explossive rock guitars; 'Floodwater' is also quite interesting and very catchy. BUT there're 2 things i dont like about this album. 1: it sounds as if Nitzer ebb wanted to follow NIN or 242's Up Evil style, and that, while not being necessarily bad in itself, it is when it sounds much too similar; some of the songs remind me too much of some 242 songs in 'Up Evil', such as 'Melt' or 'Fuel'; 2: while there's a bunch of really good songs, there're others quite mediocre, especially the second half of the album. Douglas's voice is very good anyway, and Nitzer Ebb are not to blame for trying to change their typical EBM-industrial rigid beat. But the album sounds as if it was half-finished; and the worst and strange of it is that in b-sides there're some songs ('Friend', 'Beats Me') which are quite good and superior to the mediocre songs of the album."