Ebbhead

Nitzer Ebb | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 19, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Geffen Gold Line Sp.
• ASIN: B000000P06
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,447 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Reasons

2. Lakeside Drive

3. I Give to You

4. Sugar Sweet

5. DJVD

6. Time

7. Ascend

8. Godhead

9. Trigger Happy

10. Family Man

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Having claimed that their initial electronic purity was more to shock the punk rockers than dismiss guitars, Britain's Nitzer Ebb turns the tables and affronts the industrial audience by messing with its signature EBM sound. Slower tempos and added orchestration work occasionally ("I Give to You," "Godhead") but are mostly a messy experiment. Rather than gaining ferocity with age, à la Ministry, Nitzer Ebb are simply watered down. The hip-hop scratching and disco-industrial fun of "DJVD" are playful and predate Prodigy, but Ebbhead is hardly a step forward for the group whose debut, That Total Age, remains a cornerstone of industrial dance. The addition of a "Family Man" remix serves only to remind the listener what Ebb are capable of, which is much more than this. --Liisa Ladouceur

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nitzer Ebb: Industrial at its best!, August 1, 1999

By 

Adam Naworal "~.a.~" (Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ebbhead (Audio CD)

I first heard Nitzer Ebb on Florida's Planet Rock radio station. the anger and fury of the lyrics, the oppressive beats... industrial heaven! EBBHEAD is (next to THAT TOTAL AGE) Ebb's finest moment. at just over 44 minutes, this disc deliers the goods. "DJVD" is a funny yet furious attack at the DJ scene, and it includes the priceles line "Originality deficiency". the other highlights are the atmospheric "I Give To You", the tribal "Ascend", and the funky "Trigger Happy". the only low point is the "Family Man" remix. it seems tacked on (which it is!) and it pales next to the original. overall, though, EBBHEAD is a great disc, and at six bucks, you can't go wrong! oh, yeah, this goes out to Ebb themselves: RELEASE MORE MUSIC, DAMMIT!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EBBHEAD HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE THE REST, February 9, 2005

By 

James R. Thompson "walking warehouse worker f... (Albany, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ebbhead (Audio CD)

If Mute ever decide to release a Best Of Nitzer Ebb, they could save themselves a considerable amount of time and re-release EBBHEAD in its entirety (possibly with the exception of "Time," which, for my money, is an overlong, annoying waste of, yeah, you guessed it, time) and tack on a few tracks from each of their other albums.

EBBEHEAD was given to me by a fellow student in my high school science class in the early 90's. A little earlier I had been dumped by my longtime girlfriend and cut from the basketball team. I took up running in the morning as a way to fill two voids in my life. Whenever I wasn't listening to Nine Inch Nails' PRETTY HATE MACHINE during these morning marathons, it was EBBHEAD. Some 15 years later EBBHEAD still sounds fresh, while PRETTY HATE MACHINE sounds, well, 15 years old (this doesn't stop me from enjoying it; it just hasn't aged as well as EBBHEAD).

EBBHEAD'S timelessness is due to a couple of factors. The most important is probably the stellar production of Alan Wilder, whose wildly inventive soundscapes are sadly missed on the last couple Depeche Mode records (for further listening, check out his spine-tingling work on "Come Alive" from the somewhat hard-to-find Nitzer Ebb E.P. AS IS). Also, EBBHEAD is Nitzer Ebb's most musical outing. Douglas McCarthy makes a real effort to mix things up vocally as opposed to just barking out lyrics like a one-note drill sergeant on steroids. As a result, EBBHEAD is the only Nitzer Ebb record I can listen to from start to finish (with the exception of "Time," as I mentioned) without cringing intermittently.

Sadly, EBBHEAD was the last great Nitzer Ebb record. BIG HIT followed four years later but forgot to bring the variety and quality. "Kick It" and "I Thought" are the only keepers from that monotonous, muddled mess. People blame Flood for ruining Erasure's LOVEBOAT (he didn't; it's a good record, though a notable step down from the dizzy heights of COWBOY, but I digress), but he did a greater musical disservice to BIG HIT by burying the vocals. Here's hoping Nitzer Ebb reunite someday and have the good sense to bring Alan Wilder back into the studio with them.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars classic industrial music, July 27, 2001

By 

the ruiner 69 (THE BORING NIN CHAT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ebbhead (Audio CD)

a couple of years ago i purchased BIG HIT for around 2 bucks and thought it was killer. as time went by, i discovered more industrial music and this one quickly became bottom of the barrel. since then THRILL KILL KULT, MINISTRY, NINE INCH NAILS, SKINNY PUPPY, and ELLECTRIC HELLFIRE CLUB domonated my stereo. but recently a friend told me to check out the other NE stuff, saying BIG HIT was a bunch of bull. well, this album contains some of the best MUSIC i've heard. I still have yet to purchase SHOWTIME or THAT TOTAL AGE. standout tracks include LAKESIDE DRIVE, I GIVE TO YOU, ASCEND, GODHEAD, TRIGGER HAPPY, and FAMILLY MAN.