If 2002 was our current post-punk revival's 1979-- with the Rapture, Liars, Interpol, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerging with fresh takes on not-so-unknown pleasures-- then right now we should be in 1983, the time when punk's confrontational anti-fashion gave way to Flock of Seagulls salon specials, Talking Heads graduated from CBGB to MTV, the masses chose the Fixx over the Fall, and the difference between late-period Gang of Four and early INXS was becoming increasingly negligible.

So in this sense, Nuremburg quintet the Robocop Kraus' U.S. debut (and fourth album overall) couldn't be better timed. Their version of post-punk lops off the "st-punk" part and just adds a "p" to the end, adhering to the genre's premium on mechanistic rhythmic precision-- and what do Germans know better than precision-- but with the sharp angles and jagged edges gilded into smooth, shiny (and sometimes indistinguishable) surfaces. That could also be said of every aspiring skinny-tie merchant from the Killers to We Are Scientists, but the Robocop Kraus are a more sublime, less marketable prospect, and not just because they name-drop Drive Like Jehu, base songs around the rinky-dink Casiotones from Trio's "Da Da Da", and have a bass player who looks like D. Boon. They Think They Are the Robocop Kraus dwells on mundane matters that would put most faux-hawked fashionistas to sleep: proletariat politics, morning commutes, and urban planning. But the Robocop Kraus are not here to smash the system, but rather question it, over fine wine and congenial conversation. The most immediately engaging track here pays tribute to German Mattias Rust's 1987 Cessna flight into Moscow's Red Square, but it sums up the band's ethos in the simplest, most polite terms: It's called "You Don't Have to Shout", and as the song ably demonstrates, it's much more gratifying to clap your hands than raise your voice.

The Robocop Kraus' mild-mannered temperament would be a greater liability were it not for the consistently spirited performances of frontman Thomas Lang: On "You Don't Have to Shout", he's an Alex Kapranos who doesn't have to check himself in the mirror every 20 seconds, while on opener "After Laughter Comes Tears", he mainlines the inquisitive intensity that David Byrne brought to "Life During Wartime". And when the songs do push Lang outside of his comfort zone-- like on the overwrought balladic turn "Life Amazes Us Despite Our Miserable Future", or the brazen Brit affectations on "There Are Better Lights in Hollywood"-- his mates are there to back him up with game-saving group choruses better suited to the union hall than the discotheque. If nothing else, the Robocop Kraus should go down as one of the few post-millennial post-punk bands to remind us that white belts and blue collars do not clash.

-Stuart Berman, April 10, 2006