Reading Music

While talking about dubbing music, translations and language, here's the problem vice versa for you English speaking guys!

The 4th album of Rammstein is out, Reise, Reise, and its spinning in my player as we speak. May be I should have waited a lil bit longer before writing a review, because I'm pretty much undecided yet in my final judgement about it, but still there are some thoughts on my mind already.

To stay on topic first of all, I do pity all you guys, who do not understand the lyrics, because again they are one of the many highlights. Sometimes I'm wondering how sick those guys are to create such lyrics. Nothing is as it seems and some details - the lil surprises - will even slip for the careless German listener. Provocative ("Mein Teil") and offending ("Morgenstern"), flagrant ("Keine Lust") and honest ("Los") and just the typical Rammstein sickness ("Stein um Stein"), just the spectrum of topics is amazing and shows a band on the peak of their creativity.

The music is more extreme in all directions. Its got even more pressure by the fantastic arranged rhythm section, outstanding, extremely well produced drum parts, a bass guitar, that lets you fear for your closed windows, razor sharp rhythm guitars in best tradition of early "Pantera" or "Clawfinger" and of course Till Lindemann's vocals giving his best Adolf Hitler impersonation as usual. But there is another side to this album as well. Rammstein goes melodic, which not always works in my view. On "Ohne Dich" Lindeman actually tries to sing, I mean, singing like other people do, accompanied by string arrangements... well... it was worth a try, in the end its still a nice gothic metal song.

I guess we all know, why "Amerika" has become the first single from this album after you listened to it, so I wont comment this no further. A lil bit of opportunism shall be granted to anyone.

Best songs on the album: "Mein Teil" with an impressive guitar work, that makes every hair dryer superfluous, when you're coming out of the shower. The lyrics were "inspired" and refer to the case of a man-eater we had here in Germany a year ago. My favorite song however is the totally untypical, but wonderful "Los"! It has been a while that a song made me stomp my feet. This does! Rock'n'Roll... with just acoustic guitars! Its hard to describe... AC/DC unplugged... with an irresistible driving beat! Give it a try!

So, the final smart words... mmmh... the sound is amazing, the lyrics are great, the spectrum of ideas and styles is wider than ever before... and still... there IS something I cant get grip on yet. Though technically this is one of the finest works I heard in a long time, it doesn't make me jump in excitement like "Sehnsucht" did. This feels sort of like the beginning of the end of Rammstein. No doubt, it will be a huge commercial success, and yet it feels like the idea of Rammstein has come to an end, there seems no direction to develop to, other than leaving behind what made them big. And what made them big, the really typical Rammstein ("Reise, Reise", "Moskau") sounds actually boring meanwhile after 2 times listening to it...

"Reise, Reise, jeder tuts auf seine Weise" ...good luck, guys!

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

Somehow, I didn't know this was out. After a quick listen to the flash-player Rammstein radio link you had in your post, I MUST have this album. My rampant consumerism demands it.

We're all living in Amerika, Coca-Cola, it's wunderbahr! Amerika! Amerika!

Thbbbbt

We're all living in Amerika, Coca-Cola, it's wunderbahr! Amerika! Amerika!

you know: 'this is NOT a love song!' ;)

cu, w0lf.

Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!

I have to agree, the new album rocks. After I've been a bit disappointed by Mutter, there's plenty of great stuff on Reise, Reise. The lyrics are more coherent, the sound is, simply put, fat. It's like a film noir turned into a radio play with loudspeaker-killing soundtrack.

Oh, and for the German-speaking among us there's a recent interview with bassist Oliver Riedel.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

For all you non-German people's viewing pleasure, I present you the carefully translated lyrics to Mein Teil. It's nowhere near the quality (or atmosphere) of the original German lyrics, but should give you an approximate idea what you're listening to. :-)

* That's a pun. "Er hat mich zum Fressen gern" can be translated as "he's very fond of me" but literally means "he likes me so much, he could eat me". A rather common German phrase to express fondness, which gets a whole new meaning when applied to a cannibal :-)

** Himmel is the German word for both sky and heaven. Those two are not distunguished, i.e. when the word Himmel is used its meaning depends on the context.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

This post was edited by null on Oct 06, 2004.

Thank you, so thoughtful.

*tries to imagine the original atmosphere*

Cannibal. mmHmm.

Moose loins. Ah, I get it.

"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating." --Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

... and so have you gotten the album yet?

I can't believe you didn't know it was out?! Weren't u supposed to be into music or s'thing? and moreover r in AMERIKA! ;) Hey, if I can get it in Asia on the 1st day it was released ...

Now, getting their albums is one thing. Have u gotten your @herzeleid.net email address yet? *compares notes*

"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating." --Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Haha, thank God for Herzeleid.net.

As for Reise, Reise, I now have Amerika and Mein Teil more or less memorized, and I really, really want the album. I'm glad to hear some of the little things in the music (the almost melodramatic rises and falls of the music, Till's almost absurdly trilled pronunciation of the letter r, etc.), and it sounds like on a whole they've made great steps in their musicianship.

Thbbbbt

and I really, really want the album.

Can't you get it where you live?

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

Why do you want a black door?

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.

Why do you want a black door?

Because it looks really ugly in red?

:-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

This post was edited by null on Nov 25, 2004.

Sometimes I'm wondering how sick those guys are to create such lyrics.

Not sick enough. Kinda nice compared with several of my favorite (german-singing) bands ;) - like Eisregen, Bethlehem, Jack Slater, etc.

But what I do like on (?) the new album is: the texts are getting more intellectual, the sound is going kinda a-typical and of course their current single might 'make monkeys' out of all the US english listeners who dont understand a word but the 'we're all living in amerika'-part - not knowing it's a very sarcastic song :D

Also the last few interviews in the only and one metal zine Legacy brought me some nice (in)views of the single members and of the band itself/themselves.

What I like most about this album is: Right now, they're kinda on a trip 'back to the roots' - the music they play sound way more like the 'Herzeleid'-stuff, more intelligent song lyrics, better mixture/blend of styles, etc.

cu, w0lf.

Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!

So I finally found a store with the album, and I already find something in every song that I like. I'd heard Amerika and Mein Teil a thousand times, but the song Reise, Reise had an almost familiar sound to it, possibly because, as Wolf mentioned, they're going back to their older sound (maybe even some mental connection to Herzeleid's more calm "Seeman")

I've got a question on some of the word-play in Los (if it's intentional, then I caught the "Sie sind Gott. . . . los" as "godless" and "god. . . go!"). When Till says "Sie sind geistlos," is Geist supposed to be spirit, one of the ways we use soul (Seele) in English, or is it meant simply as ghost?

Thbbbbt

"Sie sind geistlos,"

I'm not sure if I know all possible meanings of "spirit", so I can't answer exactly the question you're asking. But I think it's more like "dull", a little bit in the sense of "superficial" or "hollow". Whatever the appropriate English word may be. :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid