Album of the Day-May 1
Rammstein — Untitled
1.May.2020
Rammstein
Untitled
2019
Have you ever felt anger so strongly that you truly “blind with rage” — that moment when every atom in your body is white-hot with anger?
That’s what Rammstein sounds like.
Rammstein's songs sound like what David Fincher films look like— dystopian.
Their untitled 2019 album was their first in ten years. It also marks a break with their long-time producer Jacob Hellner and Untitled is produced by their live engineer Olsen Involtini.
Now, to be fair, very few bands can go on hiatus for ten years and come back to any semblance of a career…let alone one in which can still sell records and sell out stadiums around the world. This places Rammstein in VERY rare rock territory.
With that said, Untitled is Rammstein doing what they do best…rocking very hard…and doing it better than almost any hard rock band operating on that scale, or any scale, today. Rammstein is often given labels like:
Neue Deutsche Härte
Industrial Metal
Hard Rock
Gothic Metal
Nu-metal/alternative metal
Symphonic metal
Progressive metal
Techno-metal
Frankly, I think all of that is nonsense. It’s just a way for nerds to either mentally masturbate or horseshoe their own shitty band into some genre. For me, there is good music or bad music…and that’s subjective — Rammstein is good music. But, I’ll give most credence to Neue Deutsche Härte but for me, Rammstein is just good fookin hard rock and roll.
Now, Rammstein is German…which means the lyrical content of their songs can be best described as, uhhh, unorthodox to us prudish Americans.
And since I don’t speak German so I have no idea what they’re saying here, but I did a cursory look. Here’s what you need to know. The lyrical content can include such taboo subjects as sadomasochism, homosexuality, intersexuality, incest, necrophilia, cannibalism, pyromania, religion, and sexual violence.
So let’s be honest, the band is named after Flugtag ’88 airshow at the United States’ Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern, West Germany that killed 70 and injured 346…soooo…yea.
Untitled is the seventh album in a now 25-year career and it continues what the band as always done — intrepidly rock hard.
Now, if you’ve never seen a video of the band, you should check those out too because Rammstein is a very unique band. Not only is Rammstein sonically interesting and challenging but they modernize German expressionism and incorporate that — with a heavy touch of dystopia — in their videos and live shows and that makes for a great marriage.
In any event, Untitled keeps the Rammstein bar of excellence where it usually is — high.