The Meaning of Life

After the legendary alcoholic rampage of the late 80s, our favourite Germans passed out in the comfort of a ditch on their way home from the pub. Yet after they woke up, what seemed like an everyday routine quickly turned into something much more sinister. The 90s! The intense headache in the form of thrash metal around this period peaked its ugly head around the corner, knocking out tired bands left and right, but not Tankard! Oh no, they had much more experience coordinating their limbs in such situations. And thus – after some careful manoeuvring – they arrived at The Meaning of Life. Unscathed for now, but in serious need for a vacation.

Okay, the situation may not be that dire, but the fourth album of the band does drop in quality. How steep this decline is varies from review to review, but I personally have a big soft spot for the disc. It’s a much calmer iteration of the frankfurters, switching the unhinged, spastic guitar riffs to more uniform grooves. No, not the Pantera grooves, just some genuine mid-tempo head-boppers with significantly more jolliness and less aggression. Hell, even Gerre’s pipes seem to be in recovery from the outlandish screams and shrieks of The Morning After! He is significantly less raspy, putting more melodies on the table than the rapid-fire spits of the past. Is it bad? Not at all! He still retains his character perfectly fine and delivers some of the catchiest tracks in their early years. Mechanical Man and Space Beer especially are in the first 10 songs that come to my mind when I have the chance to bring up Tankard. The former is all around perfect when it comes to mixing earworm riffs with heavy, full-throttle bass-drum blasting, but the killer beer from outer space is probably their biggest anthem since (Empty) Tankard. The sharp change from the cozy verses to the drinking-spree-inducing riff of the chorus makes for a song that’s odd even for Tankard standards, but I just cannot stop loving it!

And since I’d keep bringing him up endlessly if I didn’t talk about him now, ladies and gentlemen, enter Arnulf Tunn. He replaces Oliver Werner behind the kit after our moustachioed German left the band in ’89. Generally speaking, drummers coming and going don’t really matter to me all that much in metal (I know, I know, I’m sorry), but the change of styles is very noticeable here. He is far more present on the album, noticeably in your face both in the mix and in the attitude. It’s especially noticeable on the already mentioned Mechanical Man and the tropical Beermuda. Yet, it never overwhelms the rest of the band, leaving enough room for everyone. So, this is what he brings to the table.

Every time I put this record on, I’m having a blast. Well, up until I get to Always Them that is. You see, previous two albums have always been just short of 40 minutes – perfect size for thrash if you ask me – and managed to fill that time with unforgettable material. Their early style works perfectly with such length. However, this new approach was given 50 minutes of playtime, overstaying its welcome by about fifteen. After Always Them (which isn’t a horrible track in any way, shape, or form) the album just starts to drag, presenting more of the same you have already heard in the first 35 minutes, just in slightly lesser quality. It really is a shame because, had the gigantic Wheel of Rebirth been switched with We Are Us for example, I’d probably like the album more. It’s not a boring track, it really isn’t, but I’m just overdosing on 90s Tankard by the time I get there. Then comes the admittedly uneventful Barfly and I’m just zoning out completely. Of course, if you persevere through all this, the 2005 remaster (my preferred version of Noise Records era Tankard) has Wonderful Life to put a grin on your face with the unforgettable “Life sucks!/Yeah yeah yeah/And it’s getting worse!”.

With that in mind, I still think The Meaning of Life is an album that might not be as mind-blowing as its predecessors, it still doesn’t shit in the urinal like Destruction’s, Kreator’s or Sodom’s albums after their respective classic eras. I like it, I always have liked it, and if I don’t turn deaf or die soon, I probably will always like it for what it is. It’s a fun record where the main problem isn’t the change of direction, rather the abundance of material they put on it. A reoccurring issue with the other two albums from the “hangover period”, but we’ll get there soon enough.

The highlights of the album are Mechanical Man, Space Beer, and Beermuda.

(The original review I wrote in March of 2019 has been deleted as it was one of my first reviews and my amateurish writing did not describe my thoughts on the album well enough.)

It seems incredible (for me) the fact that this album is not as appreciated as the previous ones.

Chemical Invasion had been the first evolutive step for Tankard, composing more aggressive and powerful music; The Morning After, despite its sound quality, was a consistent release. Now, after losing an original member, Tankard had to keep on their path, and they did it in a big way.

First of all, I have to mention that Arnulf Tunn is a beast! It's a shame that he was very little time in Tankard, as he is a great drummer, maybe the best drummer that Tankard has had. He is fast, very precise and has facility playing his double pedal.

By the very first time since Zombie Attack, the band has a worthy production for an album. The sound is clear, every instrument is perfectly audible and you can listen to the notes that are being played. It's a pretty decent production; the only bad thing is that Gerre's voice is a little loud in the mix compared to the rest of the instruments, and this can be a problem if you listen to this album with earphones.

Although the music is not as fast as in Tankard's previous albums, the band experiments with more complex and technical riffs with a lot of progressive tempos, longer songs, sick drums fills and decent solos. The production helps that each instrument has its moment to shine. I consider this an evolutive step for the band since they stopped to write just fast songs, but also good riffs and they dedicated to being good musicians.

The only bad (or ambivalent) thing that I can mention is the voice. Gerre uses a more shrill voice that can dislike to several people, and more if we consider that the voice is the most high-volume "instrument" in the album. But if you like Gerre's style and/or you do not have problems with this kind of voice, then I think you will enjoy the album with no major problems. Anyways, this is not present in all songs, so this makes it a minor problem.

The album has a pair of not very remarkable songs (Dancing on Our Grave and We Are Us are the flattest songs in my opinion), but the rest of the songs are great, well worked with some effective moments, and for me, this is a very underrated album. I do no think it is a masterpiece, but it is very close to being it. Highly recommended if you want to listen to a different and a more technical Tankard.

The best songs for me: Mechanical Man, Open All Night, Wheel of Rebirth, Beermuda.

I feel bad about this score. Not because it's ten points away from a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, but because all things considered, Tankard deserves more. They weathered the 90's better than most thrash bands, with the Teutonic scene arguably suffering the most. Sure there was Tapping the Vein, and I hear some people even managed to enjoy Cracked Brain. But the odds were against these intoxicated underdogs, and they still managed to pull through. Just, listening to this album has me wondering how, exactly.

Production is a thin gruel dumped unceremoniously on your plate. Despite a surprisingly equitable mix where even Thorwarth's bass can be discerned, the entire ensemble sounds sloppy and dilute, not unlike the woeful production that plagued Razor's Custom Killing. Most riffs sound altered or outright recycled from Chemical Invasion, yet still manage to feel weightless. Not helping is the composition's seemingly deliberate lack of structure. Notably 'Space Beer' and the title track are just all over the place, stumbling around like a freshman at a frat party.

Offering a rebuttal is 'Mechanical Man', boasting the snappy punk posturing that feels like a welcome return from their previous album The Morning After. But it isn't long until this rebuttal turns into a filibuster. The Morning After was a volley of compact and punchy jams, seamless in concept and execution. Tracks like 'Mechanical Man' and 'Wheel of Rebirth', on the other hand, endlessly spin their wheels in the mud. As this is their first album with an emphasis on humor and bad beer puns, making this joke take fifty-one minutes to tell seems like a decision post happy hour.

Commanding an apropos level of dignity is Gerre's delivery, which wavers between sounding unrehearsed and completely improvised. I would never expect iambic pentameter from a Tankard album, but there's usually some form of cadence to follow. Here, Gerre spits out the lyrics as carelessly as they were written, leading to a dislocated and amateurish delivery. This tremulous flow is at its worst in the aforementioned 'Wheel of Rebirth', and if you want another example, feel free to throw a dart.

This is the part where I'd make fun of the god-awful music video for 'Space Beer', which makes Iron Maiden's 'The Angel and the Gambler' look like Prometheus. But I've trashed this album far too much while neglecting to mention the unsung mastery of drummer Arnulf Tunn. Sadly performing only for Tankard's early 90's efforts, Tunn is a superb drummer who demonstrates his double bass prowess most vividly in 'Barfly' and 'Dancing on our Grave'. So diehard Tankard fans, completionists, and drum enthusiasts should be the only people who care about The Meaning of Life. Hm, that doesn't seem right at all.

I am sure that you know this kind of albums which generally point in the right direction. They reveal the right amount of the ingredients that you normally like, but due to whatever reason, they do not really work. With that said, it comes as no surprise that "The Meaning of Life" joins the ranks of these full-lengths. There are different reasons for its unobtrusive appearance - and believe me, I really hate to write negative things about the dudes, not least because of the fact that I was born a few kilometres from Frankfurt, the hometown of Tankard.

Already the first two songs display one of the most severe problems. Both Tankard's debut and "Chemical Invasion" pleased not only with its youthful enthusiasm, but also with their sometimes simple, yet always effective choruses. One need only recall tracks such as "Screamin' Victims" or "Tantrum". But neither "Open All Night" nor "We Are Us" are equipped with a comparable killer chorus. It gets even worse. Each and every of the fast-paced tracks on the A side fails to inject the listener an appropriate portion of dirty fun. Okay, "Beermuda" is slightly better than its forerunners. Its main riff kicks off the song successfully, but - once again - the mediocre chorus prevents a really good number. Furthermore, "Beermuda" is too long, and this is no exception. Under the surface, the tunes lack of substance and more than 50 minutes are definitely too much for the here presented song material. Sorry, but it lacks of dynamism, surprising breaks and coherence. Needless to say that innovation is also missing. Yet I did not expect this feature and therefore I see no reason to blame them for acting conventionally.

The artwork is well done, but nobody likes an album only because of a good picture. "The Mediocrity of Life" would have been a better title for this output. With that in mind, I do not want to exclude that Tankard chose a philosophical approach. With regard to the existence of my neighbours, the meaning of life can surely be understood as a synonym for the mediocrity of life. Not to mention my own existence! But I fear I digress too much. The fact is that the album does not possess an iota of charisma. Incredibly shallow tracks like "Wheel of Rebirth" or "Barfly" are a torture, inter alia because of their meaningless choruses. But do not think that these tunes feature any remarkable details at all. The same goes for the production. Well, I admit that its natural snare sound is fine, but everything else does not exceed an average level. Worse still, the sound lacks of intensity in a striking manner. The power of "Chemical Invasion" is conspicuous by its absence.

This album can be helpful in order to disturb the birthday party of your mother-in-law. But it goes without saying that it is much better to have good reasons to avoid this party at all. In this fortunate case, you do not need to bother yourself with this output. Acceptable tunes like the title track or "Space Beer", that shine with some interesting guitar lines, remain exceptional and do not justify a closer examination of this record.

The fourth release from German thrashers Tankard, “The Meaning of Life,” is a curiously fun and enjoyable enough outing from the group, though the album is a far cry from their usually high quality releases thus far and really strikes an odd chord.

The first half of the album strikes a familiar tone, as the band rattles through several impressive, full-throttle thrashers that are filled with their typically fast riffs, hyperactive drumming and intensive energy that are part and parcel of their sound, yet strangely in spite of this facet it seems like a let-down as they become decidedly mediocre. While opener ‘Open All Night’ is a typical Tankard-like relentless thrasher with full energy and impressive riffing to get an impressive song front-and-center, follow-up track ‘We Are Us’ shows very little variation beyond its energetic speed and rousing gang-chorus shouts and feels far more inspired by their debut effort than anything they’ve done since then. The same holds true for ‘Dancing on Our Graves,’ as the occasional outbursts of thrash do nothing to quell interest in the song as it goes through its paces and feels like the band is now running on autopilot only three songs in as it hits the requisite notes and feels intense but doesn’t have anything to make it stand out. The progressive and technically-accomplished ‘Mechanical Man’ is an attempt to return to form with an extended run-time to get their riffs packed into a big-length song, but overall has too little energy to fit amongst the others and stands out only by virtue of its running time. Thankfully, the first half is saved with two rip-roaring tracks, the punk-influenced thrasher ‘Beermuda’ and the charging title track, both laced with technically-sound riffs and raging speeds that offer plenty of dynamics within, ending it on a high note at least.

Conversely, the second half of the album is where the album really shines and gets the majority of its solid tracks with lots to like about it. It seems to be where the band placed all the experimental tracks, more in the sense of showing their past journeys more than anything different or unusual within their sound. For those wanting them to return to their full-on punk-laced beginnings, there’s two tracks here that offer a welcome dose of relief to those wishing to imbibe that era. It’s got a full-throttle raging thrasher that would’ve fit right at home for the head-bangers looking for another dose to drown away on. The ones that got into them through their mixing of technically-accomplished riffs and savage speed have a nice epic to warm themselves on, and as a whole this section feels the most accomplished and enjoyable of the album. ‘Space Beer’ is one of the punkier tunes filled with a rocking upbeat pace, a catchy chorus made to be sung live and is packed with energy, generating a lot of goodwill to stomach the one real downfall in the similarly-paced ‘Always Them.’ Despite thrashing tempo-changes and a chaotic breakdown before the main chorus, it doesn’t do much to instill repeated listens with some of their most wretched lyrics placed atop sub-standard riffing. The technically-accomplished ‘Wheel of Rebirth’ is their real experimental effort, filled with impressive riff after impressive riff to total speed-metal abandon, only for a new wrinkle to get thrown in with bits of start/stop riffing and progressive leanings, easing up and down on the throttle appropriately and creating one of their best songs ever. ‘Barfly’ is the total raging thrasher, no fluff, no filler and just straight-up speed, making for another highlight of true thrash madness. ‘Wonderful Life’ is the other retro punk-influenced effort and thrashes away like abandon as expected, ending this whole effort on a real positive note.

While this feels maddeningly inconsistent at times, as there’s some good stuff up-front but the majority of those tracks just seem so over-the-place that there’s never a chance to really get into the album and the second half, rife with the call-backs to their glory days in the past, they make for a much better time overall with several long-lasting band classics in comparison to the just-plain ‘good’ songs that take up the first half. Most of the tracks’ aggression is sapped due to the dry production job, as the guitars lack their visceral edge that made their early works so potent and the drums just aren’t as thunderous and pounding to really get that blood to your head as quickly as possible, leaning just the songs’ energy and quick pace to do the job. While it doesn’t fail as badly as it could’ve, this is still a fun album if a bit of a misstep along the way.

Retrospectively, it's always interesting to examine the career of any long time band and ask yourself when and where, if they had stopped, they could be considered a flawless 'artistic' endeavor. Maybe we think of Sabbath an album or two before Ozzy would depart (or Dio's departure). Maybe we think of Metallica up to or including ...And Justice for All. Maybe Judas Priest, before they hired the man who tries to hard to replace a man who is almost always hard. When I think through the cumulative output of Germans Tankard, I feel like that 'point' at which the shark was in danger of being jumped came in after The Morning After, or maybe the Alien EP. If the band had called it quits then, they'd have left a nigh spotless legacy.

But Tankard has persisted, and continue on even today. To be fair, they've released some good albums since their epic youths. But there was simply no real possibility of topping The Morning After. It was fast-paced folly with intense songwriting, like one nuclear burst after another at an Oktoberfest, and made all the more memorable by the band's innocent if inebriated wiles. The Meaning of Life had the unfortunate and daunting task of following up that monstrosity, and it truly failed to measure up in most categories. The riffs were as crunchy, but not as good. The vocals were a little more melodic, but not as good. The production was possibly better from the argument of hearing the guitars better, but once again, just not as cool as the previous album.

If we were talking about some other band, this all might add up to a heap of mediocrity, but as it's Tankard, The Meaning of Life is still a pretty good attempt despite all of its younger sibling failure to live up to big brother or sister. The expressions on the faces of the Pope, Mike Tyson and Mikhail Gorbachev (?) on the cover say it all: The Morning After was really the night of vibrant, puking passion, and The Meaning of Life is really the hangover. But off to the right of the moping icons, the band's Chemical Invasion and Alien mascots are plotting something: this record does not have to be a complete waste of time, and it can still rip some corners of your face off like a quick trip to the pavement.

The Meaning of Life is stylistically not a large departure from the last album, only its a little louder and clearer. The band was still working with Harris Johns on this, and perhaps they mutually decided to enhance the sonic qualities that it might leap the hurdle faced by The Morning After in the face of metal fans and bands demanding higher studio values to go with the times. In 1990, thrash metal was still very healthy, with amazing records like Artillery's By Inheritance or Megadeth's Rust in Peace showing exactly what could be done with the genre when creative and technical skills collided, and Tankard was surely a hopeful among the German wave. But this album didn't really pan out for one reason alone: the riffs are just not as aesthetically pleasing as they were before.

The tracks are still busy and angry, and in fact, at their busiest, we hear the best material on the album: "Meaning of Life" is choked with intense, winding rhythms that constantly keep the attention span on edge as they trample through their variations, and Gerre spits his interrogations on that age old, elusive mystery: what is the meaning of life? The answer must be clear. This is Tankard. The meaning of life is to imbibe as much alcohol as possible and die in a blaze of vomit and glory, right? Yet, he never comes out and says this. "Wheel of Rebirth" is a track about a dystopic future in which our lives have been muted and nulled as if in some Orwell or Bradbury vision, but its glazed with some pretty nice speed licks and start/stop rocking. "Barfly" and "Space Beer" return us to the band's lighter lyrical fare, and both are pretty good hop stomping anthems with the visceral energy of the past few records.

You'll perhaps notice that the songs I've mentioned all occur deeper into the album than one might hope for, and this is another minor issue I had with this record. Tracks like "Open All Night" and "Dancing on Our Grave" are decent when compared with the majority of would be thrash bands exploding from the States and Europe, but for Tankard they're not really all that exciting, and these are the best of the earlier half. A number of tunes, including "Mechanical Man" and "We Are Us" are quite forgettable, and I wouldn't blame the listener for skipping right on past them. Fortunately, when you hit the title track the album becomes far more entertaining.
Another beef is that some of the lyrics on the album are just so mindless, drab and liberal in as far as they examine subjects like racism ("Always Them") and self-affirmation ("We Are Us") in such generic, wishful thinking overtones that have almost no grounds in reality. That's not to say the message is a bad one, just not that interesting when voiced like a brainwashed 3rd grader.

I don't think of thrash metal as some plebeian 'comic' genre of music like many younger thrash fans looking through a purely 'let's be like people before we were born' perspective, and truly almost all the best albums of the form (Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Bonded by Blood, Coma of Souls, Punishment for Decadence, and so forth) are dead serious for the majority of their run time, but Tankard is an exception, and I feel like their silly lyrics have always been their forte, whether that involve drunken states, aliens, zombies or all three. They've always slipped a few 'message' tracks in through their albums, and continue to do so, but on this album I felt a few were particularly hokey, and it diluted my enjoyment.

So, we are left with an album that's good for the majority, about 6-7 of the songs, and moderate at best for the remainder. That just wasn't going to cut it, and one might think of this album as the beginning of the end, or a mildly disappointing end to the band's opening chapter. The Meaning of Life is superior to Stone Cold Sober, The Tankard, and Disco Destroyer, the last two of which represent the band's true low point, and it's got enough spiky speed/thrashing to have the Tankard purist raging in his mug, but I felt a little frightened by the implication that this potent drinking machine had any chink in their armor whatsoever.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

So, two years after having reached their pinnacle in the form of 'The Morning After' which contained shitloads of riffs, they come back with another release. Here you can really notice they started experimenting with their songwriting, especially as in trying to make the riffs more complex, the songs longer and more mid-paced moments (slightly) than on the previous releases. The drumming is still pretty much the same as previously, it's just upbeat and thrashy. While this formula works for a while, they exhaust it too much on this album. After listening to this several times, you'll be noticing that after the sweet opening track 'Open All Night', most of the tracks that follow are more of the same. The riff style itself is nice, but there simply isn't enough variation between the riffs on this album. The riffs sound almost exactly the same in every song, especially in the verses. The only explanation I can think of is that they ran out of ideas the morning after... 'We Are Us' sounds like 'Dancing On Our Grave' sounds like the title track sounds like 'Always Them', and so on... The absolute highlight here though is 'Wheel of Rebirth' which has a small acoustic intro, after which the song goes into a nice riff-o-rama, with a quite different but nonetheless nicely done chorus. Easily the best song on the album. Not at all that spectacular, but it's still quite decent.

All in all it's worth a couple of pretty fun listens, but that is about it, really... the songs are just too repetitive and after a few listens it gets really boring. Enough material here for 15-20 minutes maybe, not for an hour. Tankard were never one of the best thrash bands, if you're going to check them out, get Chemical Invasion and The Morning After... those two albums probably beat everything that came afterwards. This album is what defined their entire career throughout the 90's. The style they played later in the 90s is extremely reminiscent of this album. Which is not really a good thing, I'm afraid. Best to stay away from this album or anything they put out in the 90s, go listen to Coma of Souls. Now.

This is when the decline started. Their 1989 EP ‘Alien’ had proved to be a great release so I had high hopes for this album. On ‘The Meaning of Life’ Tankard lost a lot of their intensity all of a sudden. And I don’t think this was only because of their new drummer Arnulf. They seemed somewhat lost for a moment. Looseness and punk were taking the upper hand here.

The punky thrashtunes ‘Beermuda’ and ‘Wonderful Life’ are of course briliant in their own way and mostly very funny. Also ‘Space Beer’ and ‘Open All Night’ are typical alcoholic Tankard thrasher that uphold the standard. Apart from these songs the relevance of the other songs was less than adequate for Tankard standards. Of course it was thrash metal and some songs had a pretty good catchy chorus (‘Dancining On Our Grave’, ‘We Are Us’), but on the whole far less fast and intense than we were used to from their earlier albums.

This made me frown. The band sounded too laid back on these recording. Not focussed enough or maybe too drunk. I wouldn’t know. But there was nothing that had the same amount of energy that for instance ‘Total Addiction’ or ‘Commandments’ did have.

Of course Tankard had always been about the fun and the drinks, but the amount of hyperactive thrash metal with an aggressive performance was equally important. Therefore I don’t play this album that much anymore when I’m in the mood for some Tankard.