Back in “the day”, quite a long time ago now, I was a student. I used to do a lot of studenty things, which generally included staying up ridiculously late, then not actually getting out of bed until mid-afternoon.

One of the other things I used to do was buy CDs. I still do buy CDs, but despite having more disposable income now (although having said that, an awful lot of my income is disposed of by the means of having two children), I now buy less CDs than I used to when I was a student.

Partly this was because as a student I was simply exposed to more music: going to rock clubs, having a big bunch of mates all into music, all recommending different bands and tracks to one another, there was bound to be a certain musical crossover. For example, I’ll give a big shout-out to Loz for getting me into bands like Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and PWEI; meanwhile I did my best to spread knowledge of Jello Biafra and the band Dead Kennedys.

I first came across the band Die Krupps before attending university, when a friend — I suspect with the initials MF — introduced me to their work A Tribute to Metallica, which is basically covers of Metallica songs done in the Die Krupps style — which is basically German industrial rock/dance.

So I can’t remember whether it was me or my other heavy rocking housemate Steve who first came across Die Krupps in the little independent record shop we visited. I suspect it was him, although if I recall correctly we ended up buying different albums. I think he bought Die Krupps II: The Final Option, and I bought the slightly heavier remixed version Die Krupps: The Final Remixes, featuring remixes by the likes of Clawfinger and Revolting Cocks.

But the album, purchased in 1994, has stuck with me for some reason over the last fifteen years, always remaining in my ‘top 10 most listened to’ pile, regardless of what other music shifted in and out of there over the period. So for that reason when I found myself in HMV the other day idly leafing through the Rock and Pop ‘D’ section and out leapt Volle Kraft Null Acht.

I did have a certain degree of wariness about picking it up, for two reasons. Firstly, The Final Remixes dealt with songs which were sung in English. These are in German. I don’t speak, or understand German (although I can find translations of the lyrics). Secondly, it’s not exactly a new album. It’s a re-release of their second studio album from 1982. On the other hand, it is a remixes version of this album. And I did like their other remixed stuff…

Halfway through listening to the album, and generally not understanding a word of it (except for when I’ve specifically looked up the lyrics and found translations alongside), I’ve already drawn two conclusions. Firstly, if I find any more Die Krupps remix albums, I will buy them. Secondly, I strongly suspect that this album will add to The Final Remixes and stay in my regular plays list.

So that’s an odd thing, when you consider that I don’t know whether or not I’d like their “un-remixed” stuff, and it’s unusual for me to find the lyrics almost irrelevant — I’m generally very much a lyrics man — but maybe it’s just the genre. It’s described by Wikipedia as an “industrial rock/electronic body music” thing that they do, and it does have very much a heavy metal/heavy rock vibe to it, only obviously an electronica version thereof.

I can’t imagine it will be to everyone’s taste, and some might be better advised to start with something like The Final Remixes to test the waters of the genre, as that’s got english lyrics, but if you fancy a bit of Germanic industrial dance music, and you have no objection to lyrics in German, then maybe you should head Volle Kraft veraus over to Volle Kraft Null Acht.