The Jewels keeps getting better and better with each listen. I like it better than anything else they've done in this decade. The tracks are overt musical experiments recorded over a 1 year duration. They come off quite like poems and have extra bite because of their brevity, sort of like the flow of tracks on Kollaps. Nevertheless, many of the Neubauten moods are explicit here. Some pieces are extremely beautiful (Bleib, Jader Satz), propulsive and groovey (Ich Komme Davon), eerie (Die Ebennen), raw (Mei Ro) or made to seem cute (Hawcubite, Am I Only Jesus?). The Jewels may occur to some as gimmickery, and to others like the younger sibling of Silence is Sexy, yet Neubauten have inspired me with their skill and very successful release.

Gone are the days of fire, junkyard antics and odd instrumentation. Today's Neubauten carries the subtlety of alternative atmospheres and instruments but weighs in heavy with light and fluffy sophistication no doubt found in the studio and less in the cave they used to record in. Neubauten once found a comfortable place being uneasily labeled or grouped into the avant-garde, the experimental, and the organic industrial scenes. transposing themselves into each. This latest release, Jewels, which is not a best of (by any means), is flat, tamed, and concentrated. We will miss the fire and the brimstone and the bizarre. At one concert someone, yelled fire! and Blixa, Neubauten's lead screamer (at one time) replied as calmly as he sings these days, "We leave that to Rammstein now". Yes even Blixa gets old. But the good thing is this is one album you and your mom can agree on even if you can't can't agree on Enya. Dare I try to put Neubauten in another category with the likes of others who have lead the way (like Delerium)? Is Einsturzende Neubauten going New Age?