Dritte Wahl und Massendefekt

In the organizer's words:

Finally vacation, finally sun, finally a break from the hamster wheel. However, the pleasure trip turns out to be a downright horror trip as soon as we hit the traffic jam on the way there. The route leads past abysses, revealing mined fields, stinking piles of plastic waste and private beaches full of dead fish fenced in by barbed wire. Between glass monuments to late capitalism and dense chimney fog, election posters on the roadside pay homage to the free market. Next to them, an old woman rummages through the garbage. The described "vacation in trouble" serves merely as a semi-ironic metaphor - and yet the new record by Dritte Wahl is surprisingly close in character to the odyssey described. The Rostock punk band's new album is like a relentless sightseeing tour through dystopian landscapes. "Urlaub in der Bredouille" does not rest on rebellious pathos and simple opposition and calls the great miseries of our time by name: Climate catastrophe, wealth distribution, corruption, housing shortages, inflation, the supremacy of corporations and machines. The album is a soundtrack to doom, a furious attempt to break out of the Matrix and a creative encouragement at the same time, a loud, courageous hybrid of anger, gallows humor, idealism and slapstick.

The constant dance between resignation and residual hope has always been part of Dritte Wahl's DNA, as has the credible confrontation with political imbalances. Founded in 1988, the band played their first concerts in the former GDR. After reunification, Dritte Wahl achieved an organic rise to become one of the most successful German-language punk rock ensembles - but the band has never lost its close connection to the subculture. "Geblitzdingst" from 2015 was the first record in the history of the four-piece to enter the German album charts, with the last LP "3D" even climbing to number six. Dritte Wahl are celebrating their 35th anniversary with the release of their twelfth studio album "Urlaub in der Bredouille". Instead of a nostalgic best-of record, Gunnar and Jörn 'Krel' Schroeder, Stefan Ladwig and Holger H. are releasing ten brand new songs.

The effervescent and triumphant opener "Wir schießen die Milliardäre ins All" is a tongue-in-cheek mind game with a blatant message. In "Simulation", one searches in vain for ironic ambiguity - accompanied by ominous guitars and metal-esque double bass, Gunnar Schroeder paints gloomy pictures of a sick society. The driving title track "Urlaub in der Bredouille" (Holidays in trouble) becomes increasingly cynical and ends in a deceptively harmonious finale. The change of perspective "Panama", which tells the bloodstained family history of a well-heeled business dynasty, is followed by the encouragingly anthemic "No Time for White Flags". "Edwin Aldrin" tells the tragic biography of the second man behind space traveler Neil Armstrong, while "The Spy" tells the funny fictional story of an alcoholic double agent during the Cold War. Stones in the Way" - a sincere stand-up song for the desperate and trying - is followed by "Statistics", the record's musically informal finale. Instead of drifting off into farewell pathos, Dritte Wahl deal with tendentious data analyses - the last proof that the Rostock band have not given up on the need to talk and the vacation spot of predicament.