When you walk on a gothic/ industrial festival (especially in Germany) you will see a whole lot of people walking with t-shirts from WUMPSCUT. It makes you curious what kind of music these guy(s) and sometimes girl(s) make. Well, there’s only one conclusion if you listen to this CD. This was the best released industrial album of last year. Almost everything you can imagine with the term industrial is on this “Wreath Of Barbs”. ‘Opening The Gates Of Hell’ starts as the song title promises. It’s heavy distorted, but with the right taste of melody. After that WUMPSCUT takes you through a colourful landscape filled with dark moody and macabre moments. If you look in the booklet from this CD you will get an insight of what this music is all about. Pictures of a lot of dead corpses with the words ‘we will all die in the line of corpses’ beneath it. It’s tasteless in its tastefulness, because WUMPSCUT got some beautiful dark moments as well.

‘Wreath Of Barbs’ is a number you could find on an ordinary drum and bass album (with a strange twist, that’s for sure). ‘Dr. Toth’ sounds as distant as the German Toth sounds, but the band escapes again the average by using a cold female voice. After this the band takes you from one highlight to the other. It surprises in the end with ‘Eclipse’ (kaelte container mix) a number you would expect on the early Delerium. Dreamy female vocals on top of some of the best - almost triphop like - industrial. If you only hear the contrast between opener ‘Opening…’ and this last song you will notice that WUMPSCUT have a lot to offer… Why ‘only’ 9.5 points? It’s because there’s one slight disappointment in the character of ‘Christfuck’. The title promises so much more than the almost average industrial/ gothic schlager song it contains.