NILS KEPPEL - Super Sonic Youth

"Super Sonic Youth" by Nils Keppel arrives after years of EPs, gigs and nights spent in clubs: eleven tracks, just over half an hour long, carrying the constant sense that youth is already an archaeological find.

Lumped in with the Neue Deutsche Welle revival, Keppel actually uses the German language (the rawest, most direct kind of deutsch, at times shot through with almost punk slogans) as an emotional vehicle, not as a revivalist fetish. The coordinates are clear: gothic rock, post-punk and the shadow of new wave, which stretches over practically the whole record. But rather than an exercise in citation, "Super Sonic Youth" is an attempt to translate generational anxiety into sound.

The first half of the album is nervy, raw to the touch. "Platzangst" opens with a garage riff that reeks of urban claustrophobia. Youth slips away, and with it the illusion of control. On "Keine Zukunft" the nod to no future is no mere slogan: amid murky basslines and guitars chasing each other over synthetic lines, Keppel captures a generation raised amid permanent crisis, caught in the paradox of a sudden freedom that comes with no prospects at all.

"Natural Born Killers" instead plays with pulp and cinematic imagery, but shifts the focus onto the alienation of touring. Hotels, numbered rooms, substances, ghosts that linger once the show is over. It's a track that alternates tension and emptiness, almost simulating those extreme emotional peaks Keppel himself has described: the euphoria of the stage followed by a disorienting return to emotional zero.

With "Fremder Traum" the album drifts into more dreamlike territory. Here shoegaze and dream-pop influences surface: enveloping guitars, hypnotic repetitions, writing that oscillates between desire and threat. The dream is not an escape but an ambiguous entity, capable of stealing everything if given too much room. It's one of the moments where the art-rock component comes through most clearly, in the track's circular, almost theatrical construction.

The second half of the record gradually veers toward more atmospheric territory. "Feuer" is probably the most cathartic piece: a crescendo that uses fire as a symbol of destruction and rebirth, with a refrain repeated like an exhortation to burn in order to shine. On "Du, mein Soldat" the tone grows even more stripped-down: inner wars, addictions, quick and consumed loves. The German-language writing turns almost lyrical here, with images that recall both the Romantic tradition and a post-industrial sensibility.

The duet "Raus in die Welt" with Lilli Belle brings in a glimmer of warmth: the two voices intertwine in an invitation to lose themselves in the world, to let go even when everything seems to be collapsing. It's not real consolation, more a shared act of resistance. "Sonnenkind" closes the record on a more fragile, almost elegiac note: the image of wings that can't be found becomes a metaphor for unfinished growth, for potential that struggles to take flight.

The production manages to strike a balance between organic feel and synthetic layering. The drums are often pushed to the front, the guitars swing between cutting wave and hazy shoegaze, the synths never overwhelm but sustain the atmosphere. At times the writing leans on similar images and some melodic choices tend to repeat themselves. Yet it's precisely this persistence, this fidelity to a coherent imagery, that gives the record a recognizable identity of its own. Nils Keppel thus proves there's still room for a personal, romantic take.

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14/03/2026