DEAD SHEPHERD… the first thing that came to my mind were the sheep protectors of Shea Shepherd. Is someone trying to protect sheep? After all, dead means dead. Dead sheep? Strange name.
Oh, the guys are from Schleswig Holstein.
Well, if you pronounce it, it could also sound like it’s crashing. So, noise.
The first notes suggest something good. A nice intro with bagpipes, and then it continues in a catchy punk rock style. The opener “Weiter gehen” is a first course that leaves you hungry for more.
The second song is a real banger right away. In the finest German punk scrubbing and without bagpipes, “Normal” comes across refreshingly simple. And the chorus “…shit, I’m normal…” makes me smile. Isn’t it normal that the worst thing that can happen to a punk is realizing that you’re just like everyone else, family, job, dog, and a fancy car? This quickly brings us to the question, what is normal? A nice humorous self-reflection. It’s fun, this track.
Track three continues cheerfully in the same language. Simple, encouraging to sing along, and in the end, little children are even mentioned. That’s how we punks are, we eat little children and steal grandmas’ handbags, and we’re bombers anyway. Nice, catering to the small-town clichés.
It could continue beautifully in simple, catchy German punk, but that would be a track, and it seems the band doesn’t like that.
The fourth song heads towards rockabilly rock’n’roll and could also become a little hit. A completely different style than the previous songs, but very good. The well-known riffs of rockabilly and rock’n’roll are played, and of course, it’s not taken too seriously here either. The double rocker pack is complete with “Rocker Ronny.” Fine humor paired with good observational skills results in a song about Rocker Ronny. Always somehow off, but as a rocker, you’re never really in the wrong film, at least not completely. Rockers are indeed the coolest, or so they think.
The next song somewhat reminds me of the Berliners from Fluchtweg and sometimes even the great voice of Eugen, the singer of Die Skeptiker.
Then there’s “Bang Boom Bang,” which almost resembles a punk rock hit, with a chorus that has been sung by a thousand clueless pop singers, though the male choir doesn’t quite fit.
DEAD SHEPHERD have indeed triumphed over reason with this CD.
The band from Bimöhlen near Hasenmoor behind Schafhaus close to Todesfelde seems to be something like the last bastion of fun punk. It’s enjoyable to listen to the guys making music and think back to the good old German punk days. Alongside Fro-Tee-Slips, Dead Shepherd is the second band from the north that keeps the flag of fun punk rock flying for young and old.
The band offers almost all styles on the record, from folk punk to songs in the style of Die Lokalmatadore, almost everything is included. Anyone who dares to do so deserves praise, even if surely 80% of the listeners cannot endure such openness. They’re all good, the songs from the guys in Schleswig-Holstein.
As long as they keep going like this, there’s no need to fear that the guys will ever become normal.
