Danish rock in new wrapping

In Supertanker Kliché manages to capture a time of both political and artistic upheaval in Danish society. With their anarchic approach and machine- bound minimalism, the quartet distanced itself from the hippie era as well as the grandiose American rock style of the 1970s. And they did it with popular melodic ingenuity.

Modernistic pessimism
The band uses the supertanker as a symbol of the consumer society - a major transporter of material goods. "Tanker" also means "thoughts" in Danish, so there's a pun at play here too. But behind "consumerism" lurks loneliness and alienation amid the cool, blue neon lighting, the stylish facades of suburbia and the bleak housing blocks.

"Always absent/on a cloud/feel so small/in the city/you are just as grey/and dead/there's nothing to do here," sings Lars Hug with decidedly "modernistic" lyricism in the number "Never Again" ("Aldrig Mere"). Writers such as Michael Strunge and Soeren Ulrik Thomsen practise the same blend of everyday realism, pessimism and dreams. But with Kliché it is more than just "black romanticism."

Post-modernist game
Kliché gives dark pessimism colour with a dash of irony injected into the solemnity. Modernism becomes "post-modernism" when Kliché starts playing around with form and ridicules pompous political ideologies. Two of the numbers are based on utterances by Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong. The "Mass Line" ("Masselinjen") number goes on for 10 minutes but contains only one refrain: "The people and only the people/are the prime movers/in the creation of world history."

And what could Lars Hug be getting at in "Militia Women" ("Militskvinder") when he sings: "However glorious and proud they look/with long rifles over your shoulders/on the parade ground/lit up by the day's first rays/China's daughters have a spirit that strives to higher things/They love uniforms/not silk fabrics."

Kliché gained inspiration from the techno-pioneers of the German Kraftwerk group as well as from the punk movement and "art rockers" such as David Bowie and Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music. And don't you think that Nephew with its synth-powered "statement rock" and Corridors of Power (Magtens Korridorer), which actually has the Kliché hit "Militia Women" in its repertoire, has been listening to Kliché?

Peter Elsnab is a music journalist and Jesper Nykjaer Knudsen a culture journalist.