Die Krupps

Alongside Front 242, the German ensemble Die Krupps ranks among the originators of the Euro-rock offshoot known as body music, whose dense electronic construction pairs with a raw, physical delivery. The outfit surfaced at the start of the 1980s and, during the following decade, folded industrial metal and goth rock into its synth-driven approach, resulting in well-received releases such as The Final Option (1993) and Odyssey of the Mind (1995). After splitting in 1997 the group reconvened in 2013; Machinists of Joy and the later V: Metal Machine Music (2015) and Stahlwerksynfonic (2016) demonstrated that its metallic bite remained sharply defined.

Die Krupps began in 1981 as a duo consisting of vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and spokesperson Jurgen Engler, previously of the German punk band Male, together with ex-Propaganda member Ralf Dorper. Across its opening trilogy—Stahlwerksinfonie (1981), Volle Kraft Voraus (1982) and Entering the Arena (1984)—the band sharpened a lyrically bleak, electronics-centered aesthetic. A two-disc overview of those early LPs, Metalle Maschinen Musik: 91-81 Past Forward, surfaced in 1991.

The mid-1980s brought a quiet stretch, yet the 1992 appearance of the album I clarified the listening habits that had occupied the preceding eight years, chiefly an immersion in Metallica and parallel metal pioneers. Both I and its 1992 successor, Die Krupps II: The Final Option, enriched the group’s hallmark texture with metal guitars, thereby reaching hard-rock listeners while retaining its electronic following.

The three-disc Die Krupps Box appeared in 1993 ahead of that year’s Die Krupps II: The Final Option, on which Engler and Dorper were augmented by ex-Heathen guitarist Lee Altus and drummer Darren Minter. A 1994 remix collection, The Final Mixes, incorporated reworkings by the Sisters of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch, Nitzer Ebb’s Julian Beeston, Gunshot and former Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin. Odyssey of the Mind, issued in 1995, carried the ensemble still farther from its electronic origins. Isolation, comprising Odyssey of the Mind remixes and concert recordings, followed in 1996; after Paradise Now—their seventh album, marked by metal leanings—Die Krupps dissolved in 1997.

Individual and collaborative ventures filled the intervening years until Engler and Dorper rejoined for a 25th-anniversary concert series in 2005. Three anthologies titled Too Much History arrived in 2007, succeeded a year later by a remix treatment of the 1982 album Volle Kraft Voraus. The first new material since 1997 came as the 2010 mini-album Als Wären Wir für Immer, which preceded an extensive European tour alongside fellow German industrialists Nitzer Ebb. Die Krupps’ first complete studio album in sixteen years, Machinists of Joy, emerged in 2013 and was welcomed as a return to classic industrial/EBM form. Its follow-up, the ninth album V: Metal Machine Music, appeared in 2015, while Stahlwerkrequiem, a direct sequel to the 1981 debut, arrived the next year. The live set Live Im Schatten Der Ringe, captured in 2014, was issued in 2016, and the high-octane conceptual album Vision 2020 Vision followed in 2019.