You're reading: Rammstein’s new album: Still grooving, but not as strong as in golden years

Rammstein were out of sight for so long that they seemed to have become something that comes from sweet nostalgic memories of the early 2000s — just next to Pentium 4-based home PCs, rock-solid Nokia cell phones, and CD discs in paper envelopes.

Even by the time of their previous studio release “Liebe ist für alle da” in 2009 (good God, it’s been 10 years already!) they seemed to be a bit out of the epoch. It’s like your favorite “Friends” episode rewatched after many years: Still funny and recognizable in its flavor, but you understand you’ve had enough of it when it was a hot trend.

Something similar feels now with Rammstein — 15 years ago, their simplistic, rousing “dance metal” peppered with trademark bass voice of Till Lindemann was heard from every soundbox and their logo was scribbled on every school desk. Now, with these decade-long gaps between studio releases, when you get a “New Rammstein album available soon” notification from your music streaming service, your first thought is: “Wow, I thought they split when I enrolled at university!”

But let’s pop our headphones on — there can’t be too much of a rock band of your teen years.

The album released on May 17 was given the simple title “Rammstein” for a good reason — in many ways, the record gives you everything that the band has been throughout its career: From metallic, ironclad riffs and thunderous drums of early albums to much more permissive, consumer-friendly quasi-pop themes of later releases.

The album opens with probably its best track “Deutschland” (“Germany”) — a rather rare example of Rammstein crying out on a serious topic. In this case — the long and uneasy history of their home country. Amidst Wagnerian massive riffs and smooth anthem-like rhythm, they simultaneously love and condemn Germany, perceiving both bright and dark moments of its past known to everyone.

Rammstein wouldn’t be themselves without a scandal — the music video to this single immediately triggered an uproar in German media over scenes depicting Nazi concentration camps and their inmates acted by musicians themselves. 

But after this relatively serious intro, all hell breaks loose and Rammstein kick-start a spree of mockery and disco in the second track “Radio“.

They cast their minds back to their past in East Germany and listening to voices from beyond the Iron Curtain with their home radio sets — to try and break the oppressive censorship and isolation. Parallels with the present time are expressed vividly in another incendiary video, specifically in the moment where European Union starred banners are shown painted red in imitation of the Soviet flag.

This is another example of frivolous disco played on distorted guitars: Very rousing, making you want to start dancing around, radio-friendly, decorated with interesting twists of keyboards — and infinitely distant from any sort of “metal”. 

But the next track “Zeig Dich” (“Show Yourself”) immediately dips you into the early days of Rammstein — the aggressive and speedy riffs amplified with sharp hammer-like drums and grim atmosphere of religious zealotry and obscurantism. Probably the album’s most “metallic” thing ideal for enthusiastic headbangers.

And as you switch further, Rammstein again throws a loud pop disco party in their track “Ausländer” (“Foreigner”), as if they were bitten by Armin van Buuren at some point during a studio session. It will be ripping the crowd at live shows, but from the very first bars it feels too shamelessly pop and goosey even for Rammstein, who could never be accused of being faithful metalheads.

They continue with their beloved filthy, over-the-top lyrics about sex and mental deviations on tracks “Sex” (another must-have for their live set list), “Puppe” (“The Puppet”) — a viscous and heavy-handed thriller about a little boy going insane and ripping his toy doll apart, in which Lindemann screams bloody murder to scare the hell out of you, and “Was ich liebe” (“What I love”), which feels like a continuation of the grown-up maniac’s story in the same dark and murky colors.

Then comes the minimalistic acoustic ballad “Diamant” (“Diamond”), a lyrical digression about tragic love, in which Rammstein surprisingly went without any deviations, maniacs, and bloody freaks.

The last 15 minutes are marked with quite listenable though barely memorable “Weit Weg” (“Far Away”) and “Hallomann,” although the next-to-last track “Tattoo” brings one of the album’s strongest grooves. A supertypical Rammstein grinder of simplistic heaviness-for-heaviness riffs seems taken from the band’s golden first albums of the 1990s and must be definitely included in live set lists to squeeze every last drop of sweat from those jumping in fan zones.

So what does it feel like after listening to the Rammstein record?

The sound and mastering are simply brilliant, probably next to being flawless. After all these years, Lindemann’s bass voice is still juicy and stentorious, and the band is potent of composing ecstatic and adrenaline-pumping encore hits ideal for going bananas at open airs.

It remained a misty secret why Rammstein had used the drone video footage of a busy square in the Ukrainian city of Kherson for the album’s teaser, together with intro riff from “Tattoo”. Nothing in the record points out to the square or its monument to the city’s World War II heroic defense — except for just a hint on Germany’s Nazi past in “Deutschland” track.

In general, Rammstein has rolled out a good, worthwhile album after a decade of silence. It’s definitely not the album of the year, and it is not as good as its early works, but it’s still grooving and rousing.

We confidently give it 7 points out of 10.

Fans under the stage will be having lots of fun — so let’s get our fingers crossed in hope that Ukrainian promoters will manage to bring the band for their first-ever show in Kyiv.