Kev Rowland Following on from the success of ‘Rough Times’, the stoner trio of Christoph ‘Lupus’ Lindemann (vocals, guitars), Christoph ‘Tiger’ Bartelt (drums) and Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup (bass) of course hit the road, with their set at Pumpehuset in November 2017 being recorded and now released by Nuclear Blast. There are times when these guys feel as if they are a brutal force of nature, all tied together to produce shockwaves of sound. But this rather falls away when Lindemann goes into guitar solos, as there are too many times when one wishes they were a quartet instead of a trio, as they start to lose impact as the bass/drum combination isn’t heavy enough to keep it all going, no matter how distorted and fuzzed out the bass actually is. I hadn’t noticed this on the studio albums, but it is definitely a factor at times on this release.

When they allow themselves to play with countermelodies and interweaving sounds, such as on “The Old Man”, it shows that there is some delicacy and thought behind the hammer blows, but when it gets cranked and distorted then it feels far more primal. When the volume is right up, and they are blasting this out onstage then I am sure this is a band to be reckoned with, but for me this live album doesn’t really have the presence and power of the last few studio albums. Solid and often very enjoyable, but not essential.