Search - Young Gods :: Play Kurt Weill

And these few precious days...

02/27/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The songs may be Kurt Weill's, but The Young Gods delivered one of the
most startling, original and powerful albums of the 1990s with these
eight cover versions - covers unlike any others. "Salomon
Song" veers from dream-like vaudeville to nervous edginess and
back again. "Mackie Messer" is the famous Mack-The-Knife
routine taken into punk-rock, speed-metal territory ( sampled of
course ) with German lyrics intact. Franz Treichler gives one of his
greatest vocals on "Alabama Song", omitting pure evil as he
snarls "Show us the way to the next little girl..." -
sounding like a killer or pedophile before the song is hurled into a
thunderous chorus. "Seerauber Jenny" reminds us of the
kind of music we might have heard in a Berlin theatre or nightclub in
Weimar Republic years, the song descending into an overpowering
darkness at its climax. And then there is the utterly haunting and
evocative rendition of "September Song". No one produces
music like The Young Gods.
"

TYG bring Weill back to life

04/28/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"We've all heard the old Doors cover of the Alabama Song,(yawn). Luckily, this isn't a doors album. The Young Gods took Weill's old tunes, (which were brilliant and controversial in their time) and made them their own. The original song is barely recognisable at most points, in it's place is pure industrial strengh ingenuity. Probably my favourite YG album."

Modern Art, and in a good way.

Gluedisc | 01/25/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's not very easy to find original takes on the Brecht/Weill world, so after the two hundredth jazzy cover of Mack The Knife and Speak Low, the Young Gods cover album is a breath of fresh air. Most of the songs bear no resemblance to the orginal apart from the lyrics and basic rhythm - it's monotonous growling with cheesy steam factory sounds and a distorted half-techno beat, and the (absolutely mind-blowingly gorgeous, by the way) Pirate Jenny is the only song that comes even close to having a melody. But it's good, it's great even, because despite being Modern Art and really quite loud, it's got the Brecht/Weill vibe down pat, more than any Ute Lemper version or Gisela May recording ever did. As much is evident in the booklet, as well: a bilingual (English and French) background sketch of Brecht and Weill and the Threepenny, and even a small homage to Miss Lotte Lenya, with a very nice compact origins bit for every song included.



In between grunting and screeching and fantastically screwing around with the meter, the Young Gods manage to include proggy synth-rock ocean waves, acoustic bass plucking, and even some spider-web sitar space sounds. But it's all in a down to earth, self-aware rock sort of way, never straying too far from the original: the German songs are raw and sound of 20's cabaret, the English songs even more hokey than intended (Brecht never wrote the Alabama Song as good English, after all, and it shouldn't ever be sung as such). And once you get past the initial weirdness of a male Seeräuberbraut, Franz Treichler's soft "Hopla" ranks among the very best.



It's really not the kind of album I thought I'd ever like. I ended up loving it. And it's the perfect off-beat addition to any Weill fan's collection."