X Mal Deutschland – Devils

I also bought this shortly after it came out and was massively disappointed in the cheesy pop sound. I remember going back to the indie record store the very next day to return it. The girl at the counter asked "oh does it have a scratch?", no it's just terrible, I said, she laughed and actually did the return lol. And yes, they had been moving in a more accessible pop direction since about Sequenz, but this album was bad pop music, full of silly cliches on top of that. Siouxsie's Kiss Them for Me & The Cure's Pictures of You are great examples of "goth" bands doing fantastic pop sounding records without the dumb cliches. Christian Death's Church of No Return was another one I remember that was just plain awful pop. Just my opinion.

I bought this on release, I happened to be in WOM in Berlin and was surprised and excited to see a new X-Mal release. I was surprised and a lot less excited when I got home and played it.

By comparison to their previous work this is garbage, a piss poor AOR album. It's not even the full band just Anja and Wolfang with the addition of Frank Z.

Interestingly on Spotify it's not showing as part of the discography which makes me think they've disavowed it themselves.

I have to disagree with the overly negative appraisals of this album from other reviewers. You could hear XD moving in a more pop-oriented direction with each release after the first album. The progression from Viva to Devils was certainly the most pronounced, and if you are a Fetisch diehard, you are probably not going to like Devils at all, but I really do enjoy every XD release, including the more pop-centric stuff, if you could call it that. Devils was quite a shock to the system for me though, and the first time I heard it, I also thought "arena rock," which is actually quite ridiculous when one imagines a stadium full of people pumping their fists along to this music. "Sleepwalker" is an amazing song, and there are other songs here that I also find to be quite enjoyable. The album has a good energy level and flows very nicely from start to finish. Maybe some find it a guilty pleasure, but I don't think XD have anything to be ashamed of with this release, and it has grown on me over time. Just my two cents.

how could it all go so wrong? their swansong is terible. it's all stadium rock and HM clichés. such a shame because they used to be so good....

Back in 1989 it was more independent to do a pop album then to do another „underground“ album.
They try to do an ambitious pop album. What a fantastic idea. Such a difficult mission for a lot of bands in the mid eightees...