Lament is the 14-track recording of a live installation by this august German industrial outfit (associates of Nick Cave), performed in Belgium to mark the centenary of the first world war. Industrial bands have some affinity for the horrors of mechanised warfare, and so Lament begins with the dissonant grinding of a Kriegsmaschine revving up. Soon there are telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas played out as synth-pop and a mesmerising 13-minute rhythmic rendering of the war, starring each country as a separate tone. Imaginative adaptations of archival material play off against theoretical pieces to give this intellectually rigorous, uneven, moving record depth and breadth.
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