Try it with love: Tocotronic
Photo: dpa
The title of the new Tocotronic album appears as a somewhat sentimental: “Golden Years”. Doesn’t the band go into a sentimental navel show? No, of course it’s not that easy. Tocotronic are considered a co -founder of the Rock discourse – and therefore not for nothing as a master of ambiguity. And so the title on the one hand is a reminiscence of the David Bowie worshiped by the band, who placed a song of the same name in 1976 at his century album “Station to Station”. On the other hand, he is not only nostalgic, rather singer and guitarist Dirk von Lowtzow sees an “open system” in him – precisely because he leaves open whether it is a flashback, a utopian future performance or even a sarcastic interpretation.
Nevertheless, the band did not instill the album too much utopian potential-who likes it to blame it in view of the cloudy brown presence. On “Golden Years” one is primarily concerned with countering the social regress: in a beneficial striking way in the previously decoupled Uptempo track “because they know what they do”. Then Lowtzow swings himself up to a reincarnation of Rio Reisers for a short moment. swing. Fight-and-agitative it says in the direction of AfD, FPÖ & Co: “These people are dangerous because they know what they do” and “You have to fight them because they become more numerous”. It is just missing that the band decides the song with the line “Makes you break what breaks you”, but does not. Instead, Tocotronic recommend love as an antidote to violence: “If we kiss them onto the mouths, we will make them cold faster.”
Musically, you move consistently on the tried and tested terrain. Why should you leave it too? Because the band knows about that certain something that is needed to make a good song an outstanding. And yet you want the band to take an example on the pop chameleon Bowie and break out of her corset for a moment: the typical chord changes, the hymnic hooks-all of this is already known from the 13 previous albums . And so there and there are slight tendencies to tendency to creep in here and there, without always making it clear whether the listener or the band is on the side. It is probably like in every respect: both are responsible for this.
The song “A rock star dies for the second time” does not really ignite-and that despite the fantastic Hüsker-Noise-Noise Gazitar Caskades by long-time lead guitarist Rick McPhail, who announces his exit from the band after the album recordings ended has. And also on the navel show in “Every day a new song” could have been foregoing – even if it is sympathetically disclosed: “And then I burn a new song about vanity every day.”
In contrast, there are several strong songs such as the opener “Death is just a dream”, the title track or “forget the darkness”. And with “stay in life”, Tocotronic even present a real overpass that appears in the truest sense of the word at the right time in view of the political and social crisis situation. And yet-as on the two predecessors “The Infinity” and “Never again war”-in the end the realization: A good album is not necessarily a good Tocotronic album. This in turn, the band got in.
Tocotronic: »Golden Years« (Epic Local/Sony Music)