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**Xmal Deutschland - Fetisch**
★★★★☆

In the gothic pantheon of the early 1980s, where pale-faced prophets emerged from smoky clubs wielding synthesizers like sacred relics, few bands captured the zeitgeist quite like Hamburg's Xmal Deutschland. Their 1983 debut album "Fetisch" stands as a monument to that fevered period when post-punk was morphing into something darker, more theatrical, and infinitely more seductive.

The band's genesis reads like a gothic fairy tale scripted by Virginia Woolf on absinthe. Formed in 1980 by four young women who'd absorbed equal measures of Siouxsie Sioux's imperious wail and the Cure's cathedral-sized melancholy, Xmal Deutschland (pronounced "Iks-mal Deutschland," meaning "Once Germany") emerged from Hamburg's underground scene with the kind of mystique that made A&R men weak at the knees. Vocalist Anja Huwe possessed a voice that could shatter stained glass windows, while guitarist Manuela Rickers conjured riffs that seemed to emanate from some netherworld between punk's three-chord assault and art rock's cerebral pretensions.

By 1982, the band had caught the attention of 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell, that canny curator of the sublime and strange. Fresh from signing the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, Watts-Russell recognized kindred spirits in these German sirens. Their early singles had already established them as practitioners of what would become known as darkwave – a genre that married punk's urgency to electronic music's alien textures, all wrapped in production values that suggested recording sessions conducted in medieval crypts.

"Fetisch" opens with "Großstadtindianer," a prowling beast that immediately establishes the band's sonic territory. Huwe's vocals, delivered in heavily accented English that only adds to their otherworldly appeal, float over a rhythmic foundation that's simultaneously driving and hypnotic. The guitar work here is exemplary – Rickers understood that in this music, space was as important as sound, creating an architecture of echoes and reverb that gave each song the dimensions of a cathedral.

The album's centerpiece, "Incubus Succubus," remains one of the finest examples of early gothic rock committed to vinyl. Built around a bass line that seems to descend into hell itself, the song showcases the band's ability to create genuine atmosphere without resorting to the theatrical clichés that would later plague the genre. Huwe's vocals shift from whispered incantations to banshee wails, while the rhythm section – bassist Rita Simon and drummer Manuela Zwingmann – locks into a groove that's both danceable and deeply unsettling.

"Qual" demonstrates the band's more experimental tendencies, incorporating electronic elements that presaged their later, more synthesizer-heavy work. The song's industrial undertones and processed vocals create a soundscape that wouldn't have been out of place on a Throbbing Gristle album, yet the underlying pop sensibility keeps it from disappearing into pure avant-garde abstraction.

The production, handled by the band themselves with assistance from Gareth Jones (who'd later work with Depeche Mode and Erasure), strikes the perfect balance between clarity and mystery. Each instrument occupies its own sonic space while contributing to an overall atmosphere that's both intimate and vast. The use of reverb and delay creates a sense of music echoing through empty spaces – appropriate for a band whose aesthetic was built around themes of isolation and urban alienation.

"Fetisch" arrived at a crucial moment in alternative music history. While British bands like Bauhaus and Christian Death were pushing gothic rock toward theatrical extremes, Xmal Deutschland offered a more subtle, sophisticated approach. Their German perspective brought a different sensibility to the genre – less concerned with Victorian romanticism than with the psychological aftermath of post-war Europe.

The album's influence can be traced through decades of alternative music. Bands from Clan of Xymox to modern darkwave acts like Lebanon Hanover owe a debt to the template established here. More broadly, "Fetisch" helped establish 4AD's reputation as a label where artistic vision trumped commercial considerations, paving the way for future signings like This Mortal Coil and the Pixies.

Today, "Fetisch" sounds remarkably fresh, its combination of punk energy and atmospheric sophistication having aged far better than