Five on the Open-Ended Richter-Scale

AMG Review of Five on the Open-Ended Richter-Scale

Andy Kellman
All Music Guide

Like watching a stalker cleverly follow its prey for miles, only to watch it shy away just short of lodging a knife into the back of the followed, Fünf Auf der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala (Five on the Open-Ended Richter-Scale) is Einstürzende Neubauten at their unsettling, gripping, and tension-ridden best. It was also the group's most subdued and measured work to that point, organic dark ambient that rarely utilized the chaos and cacaphony for which they had become known. You expect the big release during the closer, "Kein Bestandteil Sein," but you don't get it.