Dear Notwist,  

I find it necessary, after listening to your new release "12", to drop you a line because I am concerned for your CD's health and well-being in my country. I'm afraid to break the news to you, but your music is in danger of fresh-date expiration by the time it reaches our markets. You see, after seven or so years of existence in America, the spirit of indie-rock seems to have finally been spit out into a napkin and fed to Fido under the dinner table. And even though indie-rock insists on pushing its last bit of mileage through Rover's "relieving-end", it still plops upon the ground like a recycled sausage link, only to dry up into a doomed cliche in front of the listening public's growing exhaustion.  
So being that you, "No-Twist", are from Germany's seedy underbelly, which has built its own heritage of creative, eccentric rock music to provocative ends (i.e.; Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Einsturzende Neubauten, 18th Dye), please consider my advice: instead of trying to replicate the original spark of America's early-'90s "Dino Jr."-stylings, why not frame this tiresome genre of music into your own unique European context and possibly create a new zeitgeist? Those of us who suffer from indie-rock overload may better appreciate the subtle "foreign" schizophrenic approaches and eyebrow-raising dynamics within your music if it was surrounded by a refreshingly different landscape. 
The first half of "12" shows off your brimming, tingling, exultant onrush of sound, but on the second half, you seem to end your artistic tether, thus bringing the audience's pulse to a quick death and that's too bad because although you may be a good act worthy of some attention, popularity-wise, you are entering our scene a couple of beats too late. Therefore, I must wrap "12" in my napkin now and whistle for Fido. Better luck next time.  

Chow,