The Devil, You + Me

The first album of The Notwist in six years

How long does it usually take a band to find a sound of its own? A year or two? Probably yes, but in most cases this process lasts far longer. A German band The Notwist, for instance, has spent more than 10 years to come up to a worthy result. Since that moment when the band was founded in 1989 the sound of The Notwist has changed beyond any recognition. Initially, the musicians were giving preference to heavy rock and grunge but their first albums failed to bring them a favorable result and The Notwist decided to search for something of their own. The original style and the sound of the band were shaped by the time when they were ready to record their fourth album called Shrink in 1998. Strange as it may seem but this rock band achieved success at the expense of their experiments with electronica. Their next album Neon Golden received a whole mass of positive responses on both sides of Atlantics and became their best album. However, the newly found fans had to wait for six long years to hear something new from the band. After their loud breakthrough The Notwist unexpectedly disappeared and came back with their new album The Devil, You + Me only this year.

A comfortable air of The Devil, You + Me

Generally speaking, The Notwist's new album goes in the same direction as Neon Golden. It is a pretty peaceful indie rock, which is laced with plenty of elctronica elements. The band sounds confident, stable, very meaningful and, if one can put it that way, contemplative. Their songs arouse some sort of a thoughtful state. The melodies are always careful and ingratiating as if they fear to disturb the even stream of your thoughts. However The Devil, You + Me is not that kind of an album that serves as an insomnia remedy. The album is interesting to listen to. This is a pretty rare quality but this record definitely has it. Or to put it more precisely, it is interesting to apprehend it. The music creates a pretty comfortable, semi meditative atmosphere which seems to immerse you in the world of your thoughts but in reality you think about nothing, you simply float in this sonic stream occasionally fishing out melodies, themes, turns of compositions and different subtleties. The album's title song may serve as a very good illustration to it.

Electronica as a decoration

There are two important details that distinguish The Devil, You + Me from The Notwist’s previous record. First of all, the new album is more rock oriented. Many songs feature a special but unobtrusive taste of post-punk. For example, you may take Good Lies or Gravity. Of course, electronica is still there but in this case it was used more like a means of decoration. Secondly, The Devil, You + Me sounds more stable. If the band's previous attempts had a lot of experimental traits, which used to create pretty unexpected twists at times, now everything is reduced to a common denominator that smoothes over the sonic roughness. However, one can tell that only when both of the albums are put under detailed analysis, in general they sound equally strong. Therefore one can fearlessly say that the band's old fans will definitely accept The Devil, You + Me and that it will bring a lot of new admirers to The Notwist as well. It is hard to call it a unique album but it sounds really solid.