The tenth studio album by German

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

band

KMFDM KMFDM (originally Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, loosely translated by the band as "no pity for the majority") is a multinational industrial band from Hamburg led by Sascha Konietzko, who founded the band in 1984 as a performance art project. ...

, titled with a set of five unpronounceable, non-alphabetic symbols, 💥☠️💣🌀👊 (approximated using Emoji), and commonly known as ''Symbols'', was released on September 23, 1997 by

Wax Trax! Records Wax Trax! Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago. It began as a record shop in Denver, Colorado, opened by life partners Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, who sold the store in 1978 and moved to Chicago. In November of that y ...

Background

Recorded in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, ''Symbols'' marked the introduction of

Tim Skold Tim Skold (born Thim Sköld) is a Swedish musician and record producer who produces solo work and has also collaborated with multiple musical groups including Shotgun Messiah, KMFDM, Marilyn Manson and Motionless in White. Biography Early ...

. While his contribution to this album was as a guest, he would become a full-fledged member for '' Adios'' and ''

Attak ''Attak'' is the twelfth studio album by German industrial band KMFDM, released on March 19, 2002 by Metropolis Records. The band's first album following a three-year hiatus, it was the first to feature member Lucia Cifarelli and the last to ...

''.

Sascha Konietzko Sascha Kegel Konietzko (born 21 June 1961), also known as Sascha K and Käpt'n K, is a German musician and record producer. He is the founder, frontman and "anchor" of the industrial band KMFDM. Konietzko jokingly purports himself to be the fat ...

, the frontman of KMFDM, said the title had no special meaning, and was just an idea for a title the group had very early on, before a single album had been released. En Esch said the idea for the album title came from the symbols used for curses in

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

s. The symbols appear in the printed lyrics of "Down and Out"; the corresponding point in the song is covered with a censor-like beep in the song, and is replaced with "(SYMBOLS)" on the official KMFDM lyrics archive.

Release

''Symbols'' was released on 23 September 1997. "Megalomaniac", "Anarchy", and "Leid und Elend" were included on the soundtrack of the video game ''

Test Drive 5 ''Test Drive 5'' is a racing video game developed by Pitbull Syndicate and published by Accolade for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows in 1998. Development Accolade spent $3 million on a television advertising campaign for Test Drive 5 and Test ...

''. "Megalomaniac" was also featured in the film '' Mortal Kombat: Annihilation'', and was the first single from its soundtrack. "Anarchy" appeared on the European version of the soundtrack to the 1998 film ''

Lost in Space ''Lost in Space'' is an American science fiction television series, created and produced by Irwin Allen, which originally aired between 1965 and 1968 on CBS. The series was inspired by the 1812 novel ''The Swiss Family Robinson.'' The series fo ...

''.

Reception

Andy Hinds of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

gave a mixed review, calling some of the band's ideas repetitive while praising the programming. He also commented that the band keeps its sound fresh by bringing in new contributing artists for each new album, and noted the presence of

and

Nivek Ogre Kevin Graham Ogilvie (born December 5, 1962), known professionally as Nivek Ogre, is a Canadian musician, performance artist and actor, best known for his work with the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded with cEvin Key. Sin ...

. He called the production top quality and the album "a fine place for newcomers to start," but said that ''Symbols'' offers people that have been following the band few surprises. Kevin Williams of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...

'' called "Megalomaniac" an "incredible, irresistible opener" and said the album "could result in a KMFDM takeover of electronica." "Stray Bullet" received significant media attention after the Columbine High School Massacre due to the song's lyrics being posted on the website of one of the shooters,

Eric Harris Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) were an American mass murder duo who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebo ...

, before the massacre. The song was also played in the background of the final video posted by Pekka-Eric Auvinen on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

before the Jokela school shooting in Finland.

Track listing

Personnel

–

sequences In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is called t ...

/programming/loops,

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

(1–6, 8, 10), drums (7, 8) *

En Esch Nicklaus Schandelmaier, (born 23 March 1968) is a German musician, better known by his stage name En Esch, and has been a member of the bands KMFDM, Pigface, Slick Idiot, and . And more recently with NUKES, a 16 member band that includes Chris ...

– vocals (1–6, 8, 10), percussion (2, 7, 8), slide guitar (2), cymbals (4, 6),

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

(4),

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

(6, 9), sequences/programming/loops (7–10), scratch

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

(10) *

Günter Schulz Günter Schulz (or Guenter Schulz) is a German musician, songwriter and former member of the industrial band KMFDM. Biography Schulz's first credited appearance (as Svetlana Ambrosius, or Svet Am) was on the band's ''Naïve'' album (1990). H ...

– guitar, programming (2), loops (4, 9), backing vocals (6, 10), percussion (7, 8) * Abby Travis – vocals (1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10),

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

(6, 9) * Michel Bassin – guitar (4, 7-9), percussion (7) *

William Rieflin William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...

– drums (6, 10), loops (7, 10), percussion (7), sequences (10) *

Raymond Watts Raymond Watts (also known by his former stage names Nainz, Nainz Watts and Ray Scaballero) is an English musician, the founding and sole member of the industrial music project PIG, sometimes written as <PIG>. Watts was an early member and p ...

– vocals (6, 9) *

Amy Denio Amy Denio (born June 9, 1961) is a Seattle-based multi-instrumental composer of soundtracks for modern dance, film and theater, as well as a songwriter and music improviser. Her inspirations include world music, and is mainly known as a voca ...

–

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

s (8) *

– vocals (5) *

– vocals (7)

References

External links

The lyrics of ''Symbols'' at the official KMFDM website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Symbols (Album) 1997 albums KMFDM albums TVT Records albums Metropolis Records albums