By the close of the 1980s, industrial music heavyweights Einsturzende Neubauten had effectively demolished the boundaries separating rock music and auto-destructive art. While the band's power machinery-wielding approach could at times wrest scrap-metal symphonies of sublime beauty, more often the results played like a bleak, uber-realist commentary on the decline of modern civilization. But a dramatically different, creatively refreshed version of the band appeared on EN's 1996 effort, ENDE NEU. With a title that playfully references the band's name while translating from the German to "ending new," the album closes the chapter on EN's early, destructive phase, and hones their avant-garde tendencies to complement comparatively conventional songwriting. Perhaps a residual effect of his tenure with brooding Australian rockers Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, EN front man Blixa Bargeld's vocals are in surprisingly cabaret-like form on the Brechtian "The Garden" and the exquisite strings-accompanied duet with actress Meret Becker