:Wumpscut: never really cared about comfort, and this release doesn’t pretend otherwise. It pulls you in with a name that suggests sweetness, then quietly flips the switch. What you get instead is that familiar mix of menace, rhythm, and atmosphere that Rudy Ratzinger has been refining for decades — still sharp, still very much his own thing. There’s something oddly fitting about calling an EP Zuckerpuppe and then letting the expected sweetness sound like this.
“Zerebral Date – RKO Edit” opens things without any drama. No big intro — it just drops straight into that cold, mechanical rhythm. It’s tight, almost minimal in places, but there’s enough happening underneath to keep it interesting. Classic :Wumpscut:, really.
“Death Sprouts” slows things down a bit and makes them heavier. This one sticks. It doesn’t rush; it just keeps pushing forward with that dense, crawling groove. One of those tracks that doesn’t need much to work.
“The Beastly Hun” adds more bite — sharper, more aggressive, less subtle. Not chaotic, though: everything still feels very deliberate. That’s kind of the theme across the whole EP — nothing wasted, nothing random.
“On The Battlefield” moves into darker, more atmospheric territory. Less immediate, more of a slow burn. It builds mood rather than going for impact, and it works.
The instrumentals are actually worth your time here. They don’t feel like filler versions. Without vocals, you start noticing how much detail sits in these tracks — small sounds, little shifts, things you’d normally miss.
What I like about Zuckerpuppe is that it doesn’t try to sell itself as anything special. No “reinvention,” no big statement. It just does what :Wumpscut: does and does it properly. That alone already puts it ahead of a lot of releases trying way too hard.
So no — it’s not sweet. Not even close.
But it’s :Wumpscut:. It hits where it should, and if you’re into it, you’ll definitely come back to it.