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The come back of the Shock rockers! - Bravo

Rammstein – with 'Mutter' in Hell!

Bravo – March 2001

"Mother’s Day" 2 April: Till, Flake, Paul, Richard, Oliver and Schneider delivered the incredible disc, for which Rammstein fans have waited for more than two years. "Mutter" shot straight to the top of the Charts: Bravo brings to you everything about the strongest and hardest CD in the career of the Berlin Superband.

"Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht. Dämonen, Geister, schwarzer Feen. Sie kriechen aus dem Kellershacht, werden unter euer Bettzeug sehen...."
("They come to you in the night. Demons, Ghosts, Black Fairies. They creep out of the cellar shaft, and look under your bed-clothes....")
Rammstein open the gate to the underworld!

As explained, on 2 April "Mother’s Day" the Berlin Shock rockers release their long-awaited new album "Mutter". The band’s masterpiece: Howling sirens and incredibly full string harmonies, booming guitar explosions and bass shock waves attack the listener with the force of a natural catastrophe. Not to mention the demonic guttural vocals with which singer Till brings to light anguished and crazy hallucinations from the deep subconscious.

At the start "Mein Herz brennt", the opening track is by no means the heaviest number on the disc. In "Spieluhr", a child is buried alive: " Zwischen harten Eichendielen muss es mit der Spieluhr spielen. Eine Melodie im Wind, Und aus der Erde singt ein Kind...."
("Between hard oak boards, it plays with the music box. A melody in the wind, and the child sings from the ground....") "Rein Raus" is used as a blunt descriptive euphemism for fucking: "Tiefer, tiefer, ich fühl mich wohl in deiner Haut und tausend Elefanten brechen aus. Der Ritt war kurz, es tut mir leid. Ich steige ab, hab keine Zeit...."
("Deeper, deeper, I feel myself well within your skin and a thousand elephants break out. The ride was short, I am sorry. I climb off, have no time....")
In the title song "Mutter" Till offers the nightmare horror: "In ihren Lungen wohnt ein Aal, auf meiner Stirn ein Muttermal. Entferne es mit Messers Kuss, auch wenn ich verbluten muss...."
("An eel lives in her lungs, on my forehead a birth-mark. I’ll remove it with knife’s kiss, even if I bleed to death...")

The packaging also corresponds to the contents of the CD. Beside a human embryo, Till, Flake (keyboards), Schneider (drums), Paul (guitar), and Oliver (bass) are shown as stone-dead anatomy corpses floating in formaldehyde. "For the photo session for the cover Flake was a hair’s breadth from actually drowning" says Schneider "We had to stay immersed in a glass tank of green liquid for several minutes. Flake swallowed a lot of the water ".

For Rammstein, their uncompromising style, their lyrics and wild pyro-porn shows is what separates them from other bands on the International rock scene. In 1999 Till and Flake were arrested right off stage in the USA due to their extreme sado-masochistic sex scenes in the song "Bück Dich" and were later given a probational sentence. In 1999, Rammstein were even blamed for the Columbine High school massacre, as the two juvenile killers were said to be familiar with the song "Du Hast". Tills comment on the reproach aimed at the band: "If anyone does not like Rammstein, they should not listen to us. Our music is hard, but not destructive. We do what we want to do, but we prevail without force and we are definitely not Nazis!"

With the new single "Links 2 3 4" (released on 14 May) the frontman makes it clear: "Sie wollen mein Herz am rechten Fleck. Doch seh ich dann nach unten Weg, so schlägt es links!"
("They want my heart to be on the right. But if I look downwards, it just beats left!") The guys need add no more.

Rammstein tour Germany from 13. May to 1.June with their new show, it’s harder, spectacular and more dangerous than those of the Herzeleid Tour.
Paul: "Rammstein fans are about to get something they want. If there aren’t a few blisters or so, then we haven’t arrived!"

© 2005 Sue Lindemann