Live Review: Einstürzende Neubauten

Tonight there's clearly a dress code: black on black, with a preference for an exposed Einsturzende Neubauten tattoo on an appendage if possible. The Palace is near capacity and the stage looks like the best junk shop ever with all kinds of strange industrial paraphernalia crammed among conventional instrumentation. It's a young child's toy box writ large, and it can't help but build expectations.

They take to the stage with a curiously underwhelming kind of industrial pop cabaret that consists of leader Blixa Bargeld crooning over light percussive sounds with the occasional experimental gesture. All the amazing unknown industrial instruments are used with such restraint, all in service of the song, or more precisely Bargeld's lyrics. Bass player Alexander Hacke in a grubby singlet though is quite remarkable, pulling these incredible rock moves; it's like he's hearing and playing along to music from another band. Eventually it does get noisy, but even then the band are lacking punch. Even songs like Die Interimsliebenden off the great Tabula Rasa album, Silence Is Sexy and Dead Friends (Around The Corner) are reassuring yet don't get the pulse racing.

Percussionist NU Unruh seems to get to have most of the fun, getting to play most of the non conventional percussive instruments, whether it's extra long PVC pipes, strange springs, or even upending a box of metal rods at one point. These are the best moments, yet they feel restrained, more like a scientist using just the right dosage of a chemical compound to produce a predetermined reaction. It feels like calculated shocking. These moments need to be allowed to develop over time, and create uncertainty or uncomfortableness. But there's no danger here, no risk, not even really much of a vibe, as the instruments don't even really play off each other. It's ironic that a band of young German punks determined to destroy the establishment have themselves lost their energy, lost their edge and become a watered down parody of their former selves.