Skills in Pills shouldn’t be as mediocre as it is. Think about it: Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann joining forces with Pain and Hypocrisy mastermind Peter Tägtgren for an industrial supergroup? That’s not an equation that should spell disaster. But with their new project Lindemann, they’ve found a way there, giving us a mostly half-assed effort that, while not without its occasional redeeming qualities, represents far less than either’s best effort.

Throughout the promotional cycle, Tägtgren teased the album as “Rammstein vocals and Pain music.” Well, credit to him for being honest, as that’s more or less exactly what we’ve got here. With only a few exceptions—“Home Sweet Home,” “Praise Abort” and “That’s My Heart”—there’s not much here that would really fit on a Rammstein album in this day and age. Most of the songs are jauntier and more dance oriented than they’ve been in years. The style fits Tägtgren’s Pain perfectly, but given Lindemann’s successful ventures into darker, heavier material in his band’s more recent output, this kind of thing almost feels like it’s beneath him. Been there, pissed on that.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing: the guys actually wrote a song about getting pissed on. It’s called “Golden Shower,” and it’s the ringleader of an almost laughably juvenile lyric sheet. Not that shock-worthy lyrical content is anything new for Lindemann; over the years, Rammstein’s done songs about penis-eating cannibals and “barbed wire in the urethra,” to name just a few. If you’re familiar with the band, you’re used to strange subject matter from their eccentric vocalist by now.

But absent his native tongue, on Skills in Pills, the usual gravity Lindemann lends to such extreme material all but vanishes. Even if there is a story behind “Golden Shower,” the sloppy construction of a lyric like “Let it shower, don’t be shy, cunt / Let it shower, let it fly from your pretty cunt” makes it difficult to keep focus. His lyrics haven’t always been this pedestrian, have they? I’m asking for a non-German-speaking friend.

But maybe that’s it: maybe ignorance should just be bliss with Lindemann’s projects going forward, be it Rammstein or Lindemann. If you avoid even thinking about what a song like “Ladyboy” is trying to communicate—and/or how hilariously it’s failing to do so—it’s actually a solid, three-and-a-half-minute tune with a catchy refrain part. (That keyboard pattern!) The same goes for lead single, “Praise Abort”: if you forget about how many different things he hates, or how much he likes to fuck—both of which he brings up in the song—it’s an absolute earworm of a track.

Moments like these are littered throughout Skills in Pills, so it becomes a tough album to truly hate. Both men still have a decent amount of stock in endearing choruses, and they get returns on most of them here. But it’s also hard to really love the album, since it feels like such a step back for both of its principals. It’s just kind of…there. Here’s hoping Till and Peter get back to their day jobs sooner rather than later.

Keep it heavy,
Dan

Skills in Pills is available now on Warner Music. For more information on Lindemann, visit the band’s official website.