Last night I spent a couple hours scouring the net for any information about Metroschifter while listening to their latest EP. There was precious little, outside of a short timeline which seemed to be more interested in boasting about the band's quick turnaround (album written in two days, tours without rehearsals, album recorded in ten days, etc.) than in providing any real infromation. I found next to nothing about the music. But this was okay, actually, because I pretty much had the music pegged-- it was starty/ stoppy, guitarry, and emotional. Reasonably well- played if not particularly interesting-- even above- average to a rabid emo fan.

What I was really looking for was some clue to the significance of the 'h' in Metroschifter's name. I found nothing, though my guess was it meant something cool and emotional in German. Not being German myself, I figured I'd see what light the Alta Vista translator could shed on the matter. Unfortunately, the program was confused by the '-er' suffix and came up with 'more metroschifter,' which not only didn't answer my question, but was also terrible advice.

I then decided to translate 'more metroschifter' back into German from English, hoping I'd at least have the pleasure of seing it come up with 'metroschifter-er' or even 'metroschifter-est.' Instead, I got only 'more more metroschifter'-- even worse advice than before. Frustrated, I translated 'more more metroschifter' back into English via Portugeuse. This got me 'more more more to metroschifter.' I could see where this was headed. But maybe I could use this techinique to improve some of Metroschifter's lyrics. I fed the translator the words to "Forensic Economics:"

"Lips I will never kiss/ Eyes I will never look into/ Cheeks I will never touch/ Two hands I will never hold/ For years I have dreamed/ In thousands of colors/ In pictures I have catalogued."

These I translated to German and then back to English. This yielded the slightly less overwrought:

"Lips, which I never kiss/ Eyes I never look in/ Cheeks I never touch themselves/ Two hands, which I never notion/ For years I dreamed in the thousands colours in the figures, those I listed."

Now, those weren't bad-- especially the "two hands, which I never notion" bit. Progress was being made here. I decided to go into French and then back to English:

"Lips, which I never embrace/ Glance of eyes I never inside/ Cheeks I are never touched/ Two hands, which of I concept never/ During years I dreamed in the colors of thousands in the figures, those which I enumerated."

Ah, yes! Here was the making of real poetry: glances, insides, embraces, enumeration. You would think the word "enumeration" would find its way into more emo lyrics. But no, it takes the genius of mindless language software to get things to that level.

Regretably, I was unable to turn the translator on the music itself, an act which may have yielded true magic. Imagine emo translated into polka and back. Or into polka, then into Chinese opera, then back to emo with a short trip through a German drinking song. There are worlds of musical discovery closed to mankind until the development of music translation software. Until then, we're left with what we got, which in this case is competent but uninspiring emo from a band with a mysterious 'h' in their name.

-Zach Hooker