KMFDM – "Enemy"

Half album review, half essay about being fed up with political bullshit

24 albums in 42 years. You gotta hand it to KMFDM, not only being one of Germany's longest-running industrial metal institutions, but probably also the country's most productive band in the genre. Yes, dedicated readers might recognize this as a paraphrase on the introduction to my review of the previous KMFDM long-player, 2024's "Let Go". – An album that had enough genre-observant features and solid ideas to justify its existence, but not a lot more than that.

With all the peril of spoiling anything: Let it be said up front that "Enemy" is notably superior. Whereas "Let Go" both took a while to get started and didn't contain a whole lot more in the way of ideas than what might be considered a necessary minimum to justify its existence, "Enemy" is perfectly brimming with strong ideas and kicks in the doors up front with its fist-pumping title track – one of those openers that you wouldn't need to have heard to enjoy it when they, supposedly, open their tour set with it.

The ensuing "Oubliette", in all its uptempo Ministry-like drive, is nothing short of perfect industrial metal, hitting the sweet spot between a machine-like monotone, yet danceable beat and a guitar that takes no prisoners, even reaching a bit of a Billy Idol-like quality during the verses. But those melodic Minor-key chorus lines are the final, excellent touch that makes it all come together. Legit fucking banger, right there.

As is the 12/8-time "L'etat" (yeah, they got like a minor French thing going), its tense, alarm siren-like background theme creating a punishingly dramatic atmosphere along with the constant, jagged metal guitar. That chorus shout of "L'ETAT C'EST MOI!" will not leave your inner ear, and you will not mind that.

"Enemy" has anything and everything you'd want in an industrial metal record, and then some.

With all its metal elements, "Enemy" still tends to excel in its less metallic, more electronic and/or experimental tracks. For example, check out how that machine-like, minimalistic "A Okay", echoing early Gary Numan, sounds like an electronic version of Queens of the Stone Age. Check out how well-written its chorus is, tailgating deliberate nursery rhyme elements with flawless melody and hamonization. Check out that ultra-percussive and downright funky "Vampyr". And check out those wicked guest vocals on "Yoü" from the daughter of KMFDM main honcho Sascha Konietzko and second lead vocalist Lucia Cifarelli.

Perhaps the best song this time around would be the slow and sparsely instrumented "Catch & Kill", making for a perfect moment of variation towards the end. Its use of the flat 7th step in a Dorian key is a classy touch, demonstrating that Cifarelli knows exactly what she's doing. And I don't care what anybody says: That ultra-chilled dub remix of "Stray Bullet" from 1997's "Symbols" album just plain makes me wanna light up a fat one. Too bad my poor brain wouldn't be able to handle that. :(

Indeed, with the ruthlessly grainy, unsettling electronic buzz of the slow, heavy, and noisy ending track "The Second Coming", this album has anything and everything you'd want in an industrial metal record, and then some. So I would rate it a 5/6 – that is, had it not been for the fact that what we're dealing with here is a blatantly political group. I already knew that, of course. But the lyrics in the opener annoy me too much:

"We don't need no false leaders
No place for hypocrisy
No room for discrimination
Distinction through diversity"

First of all, I am sick to death of having been preached the allegedly supreme and untouchable virtues of fucking DiVeRSiTy on a weekly basis for I've-stopped-counting-the-number-of-years at this point. I used to be the biggest proponent of diversity I knew, but unlike certain left-wing hardliners who are more conservative than they'd like to admit, I was never married to any political standpoints, and I only voted left in order to support the maximum counterweight to the peasant-like idiocy of the opposite wing.

But if there's something I've learned through the years, it's that you can't fight fire with fire. And that the most important thing in political decision-making isn't whether an idea is left- or right-wing, but whether it's based on common fucking sense and knowledge. And lately also that some of the heaviest hypocrisy and discrimination – getting back to aforementioned lyrics – is carried out by aforementioned left-wing hardliners. Indeed, as far as I can see, those radicalists blindly parroting DiVErSiTy and iNcLuSIoN have politicized and weaponized values that should be universal, effectively turning them into the opposite of what they originally meant.

I am so sorry for the extensive sidetracking, but I can't contain this anymore, and I only work with what I'm given.

In a civilization where fucking laws now dictate that companies hire people based on protected personal traits like gender and nationality – and not, oh, I dunno, actual professional qualifications – diversity has become the new conformity, and inclusion has become the new exclusion. The concept's spread like cancer into the worlds of music, movies, and TV shows as well, and all it does is virtue signal towards idiots and victim-minded human sheep who can't think for themselves, "Look how progressive we are! Look at the minorities that we're representing! LOOK AT THEM! ARE WE NOT GOOD AND FAIR AND WOKE AND DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE?? WELL, AREN'T WE?!?!??"

Fuck all of y'all. Whatever far political wing you belong to, the farther to either side you're leaning, the less perspective you have, and the more close-minded you are. Speaking as a representative of a center that at least tries to see things from both camps, but mostly stays silent due to fear of condemnation and ostracization, I hereby tell you that many of us are sick to death of your polarized left-and-right partisan bullshit. As long as the two far political wings are shouting at each other, we will never progress as a civilization, and democracy will remain the least shitty model instead of the far superior one it COULD have been if people would bother opening their goddamn minds towards values they don't understand and gain some fucking perspective.

Yes, this is the extent with which some of us are fed up with today's political climate. I am so sorry for the extensive sidetracking, but I can't contain this anymore, and I only work with what I'm given. In fact, coming to think of it, why is it that industrial metal bands tend to abide to the political left? Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'd like to have more music from the opposite camp. Especially seeing as how, with a few Burzum and Ted Nugent LPs as exceptions, virtually all the music from explicit right-wingers I've ever had the misfortune of hearing has been horrible. But given those people's apparent level of intellect and creativity, of course, that shouldn't surprise.

Either way, in this case, my conscience bids me nothing less that to detract half a grade from my rating to set an example. That said, though, "Enemy" is a fine album, and it'll land with any fan of the band and/or the genre.

… But seriously I've bloody well had it with hearing about fucking diVeRsiTy already. Piss off and die.

Rating: 4.5 out of 6

Genre: Industrial metal / EBM
Release date: 6/2/2026
Label: Metropolis
Producer: Not sure, but I suppose Sascha Konietzko