Light-years beneath contempt: Die Antwoord review: Ear-splitting, rude, monstrous

One penis flash, one somersault into the crowd and just one mention of molesting. Consider this a fairly PC version of a Die Antwoord show.

The South African rap-rave duo - gaunt, pasty rapper Ninja and tiny, quixotic blonde Yolandi - know how to shock for fun.

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Songs with charming names like Raging Zef Boner, Girl I Want 2 Eat U and Fok Julle Naaiers [Afrikaans for F--k You F--kers] are interspersed on their albums by creepy interludes of Yolandi being preyed upon by weird molesting uncles.

Lairy art and the trashy-but-sexy "zef" counter culture are integral, as is a big F-you to the world.

They once turned down a support slot for Lady Gaga ... and then released a video clip for Fatty Boom Boom in which a Gaga lookalike has a king cricket removed from her infected vagina before being mauled by a lion on the streets of South Africa. Just to be sure she got the message.

But once you're cool with the whole your-outrage-is-exactly-what-they-want irony, the music is just plain fun. Part hardcore trance, part rap, wholly weird, ghastly and electrifying.

What they didn't offer in sheer gratuity to the capacity Metro crowd, they made up with relentless energy.

How two people - accompanied by the grotesquely large (and shirtless) DJ Hi-Tek in a bulldog face mask and an African dancer with gravity-defying booty - can maintain such intensity for 80 minutes a night, every night, is beyond me.

Every song was terrifyingly monstrous.

Some, like Fok Julle Naaiers with its heavy, stomping bass and recent single Ugly Boy with an unusually angelic sound belying its rude lyrics, never exploded into all-out raves but capitalised on simplicity and spontaneity.

Even the cuter, odder raps of Raging Zef Boner were done with spitting and fireworks aplenty.

Others were just as gargantuan as we'd hoped. Pitbull Terrier turned the crowd into banshees and when hardcore trance exploded for Baby's On Fire then quickly morphed into the elastic-likebeat of I Fink U Freeky, they lost their collective minds.

Ninja and Yolandi never stopped, even yelling from backstage as they changed into yet another hideous, glorious zef-style trailer-trash outfit.

There were no king crickets in private parts, just a quick flash of Ninja's nether regions and several dives into the crowd, one via somersault and another ending with a punch in the face to an annoying punter, while Yolandi stood on the decks calling us rapists and molesters.

It's the kind of show that would be used as a torture device on most normal, sane people. Ear-splitting, rude, self-indulgent and manic.

One man's hell is this reviewer's heaven.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/die-antwoord-review-earsplitting-rude-monstrous--and-heavenly-20150306-13wuci.html#ixzz3TaEHeCvg

Light-years beneath contempt: Die Antwoord review: Ear-splitting, rude, monstrous

Light-years beneath contempt: Die Antwoord review: Ear-splitting, rude, monstrous

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