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Rammstein: Rosenrot

21/08/07 || theProphet

Right, so Rammstein decided to double-time it and release this album only slightly more than a year after its brilliant predecessor “Reise, Reise”. One year? Double-time it? Well, not if your band is called Vader, but keep in mind that Rammstein generally takes around three years to finish an album.

So, is this tremendous effort of typical German effectiveness a mistake?

Well, the album’s working title was “Reise, Reise vol. 2” and that ought to say it all. This is obviously some German Sauerkraut-mit-Wurst leftovers, but since Rammstein kicks some badass cuisine, it might not be the suckfest one would initially assume.

It all starts out nice and dandy with the crushing “Benzin”, the first single which was released a few weeks before the actual album, and was played on their tour. It’s a great song with everything one would expect from Rammstein, heavy-as-fuck riffs, groovy drumming, keyboard effect to flesh it all out, and borderline hilarious lyrics. So far so good.

About the lyrics, it’s well worth a few German classes to be able to understand most of it. As usual when it comes to Rammstein the lyrics are humorous, dark, and morbid in a sublime fashion. It’s astoundingly ironic that the best lyrics in heavy music (cause they are) are in German.

Then comes the real prize winner on this album. “Mann Gegen Mann” (“Man against Man”, it’s not about dueling though…) is everything “Benzin” was – only bigger, better and tongue-in-cheekier. The chorus of this song might possibly be one of the best fucking choruses Rammstein (or anyone) has ever conceived. Also notable: this song was released as a single and the band shot a video for it. This video… Oh. My. Fucking. Teutonian. Deity. I urge every single one of you to check it out. If you happen not to like the music, mute it and put on another song around 3:50 long.

Next up is the title track (the title means “Rose Red” by the way), and this is where things starts to drag. This song is very, very boring and it really sounds like we have heard it all before. The next song, “Spring” (“Jump”) also fails at succeeding, aside from the absolutely crushing riff in the beginning. Fuck, if a stone golem took a dump on your head, it would be like this riff. When it appears later, in the chorus, something’s missing about it, and that sucks, cause now the song is only good for about 15 seconds out of its total time of 5:24. Yawn.

When you thought it couldn’t be any worse, “Wo Bist Du?” (“Where Are You?”) starts and causes the bore-o-meter to burst, followed up by “Stirb Nicht Vor Mir” (appropriately enough already translated in this area). And Fuck Me. This is apparently a duet between Till and some woman who sings in English. Surprisingly enough, it’s even worse than “Wo Bist Du?”.

These two tracks are the absolute lowpoints of the entire album, and it starts to pick up after this. However, it never manages to equal “Mann gegen Mann”. A special mention must go to “Te Quiero Puta” (“I Love You, Whore”). This is entirely in Spanish, and it starts with the sound of hooves, a man that says “Mmm, Amigos”, followed by an explosion of Latino-style trumpet blares. I like, this track is definitely the best attempt to revive the splendor of the first two tracks and the Latino references in the song doesn’t sound contrived.

Then there are two unmentionables (not like genitals, cause they are very much mentionable I think) and then the album ends.

Production-wise there’s nothing new from “Reise, Reise”. Till is still the manliest singer around, the guitars are crushing, the keyboards work as great fodder in the tracks, the bass is looming over the songs like some evil blimp and the drums are basic, although groovy-yet-mechanically precise.

Okay, to sum it up, I’ve been pretty negative in this review, but it’s really not that horrible (except for the mentioned lowpoints). It’s just that put next to albums like “Mutter” or “Reise, Reise”, it isn’t very impressive at all. Rammstein is currently writing for their new album, which is due in 2008, three years after “Rosenrot” was released. So it’s time to get our hopes up again.

6 German swimmers disguised as Latino studs out of 10.

Information
Released: 2005
Label: Universal
Website: www.rammstein.de
Band
Till Lindemann: vocals
Richard Z. Kruspe: guitars
Paul Landers: guitars
Oliver Riedel: bass
Flake Lorenz: keyboards
Cristoph Schneider: drums

Tracklist
01. Benzin
02. Mann Gegen Mann
03. Rosenrot
04. Spring
05. Wo Bist Du?
06. Stirb Nicht Vor Mir (Don’t Die Before I do)
07. Zerstören
08. Hilf Mir
09. Te Quiero Puta
10. Feuer Und Wasser
11. Ein Lied

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