Who doesn’t know the Christmas depression? To escape it, our protagonist flees to a Canary Island with the plan to watch all “86 hours and twelve minutes, spread over seven seasons with a total of 86 episodes” of the TV series “The Sopranos” in one go. Thorsten Nagelschmidt, Muff Potter frontman and author, tells this story in his new novel “For Members Only,” which was published at the beginning of September.
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Two months later comes the album ONLY FOR MEMBERS, for which Nagelschmidt speaks passages from the book, under which the neo-classical musician Lambert, who became known for his horned bull mask, lays down tracks that oscillate between driving beats, bubbling soft rock and karst soundscapes.
There is hardly any singing, Nagelschmidt’s narration is rather toneless, and this creates a strange effect: while you follow the first-person narrator and his fight against the impending depression in the novel with empathy, the author’s voice creates an uncomfortable distance. Suddenly the details seem petty, the penetrating navel circling becomes very self-centered – and the hero becomes a caricature of a spoiled Gen X representative with comparatively ridiculous first world problems.
This review first appeared in Musikexpress 12/2025.