Germany's Nina Hagen has always been idiosyncratic. In her work, she flirted with styles such as punk, reggae, new wave, disco and world music. In the process, she never shied away from spiritual themes in her sonorous opera-punk vocals. On Unity she still hasn't lost her wild hair and the singer, now converted to Christianity, once again dives into religious topics. For example, the opening track
… Shadrak is a reference to a Biblical story in which three Hebrew men are saved from death by God. There are also political references. The whimsical United Women Of The World is about female empowerment while the title track was written after the death of George Floyd and is about the Black Lives Matter movement. Hagen's clash of styles yields pleasant songs here and there, but for an album called Unity, cohesion is far from it. As a whole, the album sounds a bit messy at times, though that doesn't seem to matter much to Hagen herself. At least on Unity she is able to express herself, and she does so with a maximalist approach. (JvQ)more
