Tohuvabohu starts with a boisterous, tongue-in-cheek hymn to the power of KMFDM, replete with phone messages from fans extolling the band's virtues, and then tries to live up to it over the course of 51 head-slamming minutes. Longtime fans will immediately recognize the mix of aggressive storm-trooper grooves with lacerating scrawls of electronic noise multiplied across sequencer patterns and Steve White's distorted slabs of guitar. Sascha Koneitzko remains the frontman for the group, shouting his lyrics in that Skinny Puppy yowl from hell. Lucia Cifarelli, on the other hand, exults in a dominatrix vocal style. Her tunes sometimes make KMFDM sound like they want to be Shirley Manson and Garbage--and "Looking for Strange" and "Fait Accompli" almost succeed--but they just can't commit to the hook or a vocal approach that isn't shouting in your face. They take lyrical cliché to extremes on the title track and "Headcase," altering stock phrases like "Ask no questions, hear no lies" as cartoon political sloganeering. In Hebrew, "tohu va bohu" means "formless and empty," referring to the world before creation (Genesis 1:2). But KMFDM is all about form and structure and the idolatry of the beat. If nothing else, Tohuvabohu shows KMFDM's continued commitment, after nearly a quarter century, to their mutant marriage of heavy dance beats for metalheads. --John Diliberto