Let’s be honest for a moment, for we’re all friends here: Rammstein aren’t actually that good. Technically they are competent, but certainly not masters in their field, while sonically they’ve been offering up the same gloomy palette since their inception over ten years ago. What Rammstein do have on their side, however, is the ability to take the industrial blueprint and make it sound HUGE, a feat they arguably perfected on Reise Reise, easily their best album to date, and one that made the comparatively underwhelming Rosenrot such a disappointment.

So what does the new Rammstein album offer the world? Well, it is certainly a better record than Rosenrot which limped apologetically out of the speakers when it should have raged, but it doesn’t quite scale the heights of Reise Reise, not least because it offers nothing by way of advancement upon that album.

Opening with ‘Rammlied’ the listener is instantly reminded of the band’s strong points. A surging juggernaut, propelled by drums that could only sound bigger if Mutt Lange had been present in the studio, guitars that have been compressed into steel hardened battering rams and, of course, Till’s forbidding German tones lending the whole thing a layer of militaristic authenticity. ‘Ich tudir weh’ is next, opening with creepy synth before expanding out into a battlefield scarred with the hammer blows of the drums and the precision of the guitar attack. So far, so much the same and then a trumpet fanfare announces the quickstep of ‘Waidmanns Hail’ which strips back to drums and stuttering electronica on the verse to offer more light and shade than the first two tracks.

‘Haifisch’  is without doubt the closest Rammstein have come to the sleazy, electronic, whorehouse blues of Depeche Mode, but in truth I’d rather here Depeche Mode do Depeche Mode than Rammstein (or Marilyn Manson for that matter) attempting the same. As if realising that they’d stepped too far off the mark B********   is an absolute belter, operating the kind of scorched-earth, heavy metal policy that made Reise Reise such a thrilling proposition, while Till sounds truly unhinged on the vocal. It’s one of the heaviest tracks Rammstein have recorded and is all the better for that. ‘Fruhling in Paris’ is an acoustic song in the vein of the mighty Ohne Dich and it works well, with its creepy synth adding depth in the background before the drums and guitars kick in, but with more restraint than we’re used to.

‘Wiener Blut’ opens quietly, with Till intoning over the barest of musical backdrops before guitars roughly the weight of Saturn kick in and tear the whole thing to shreds. It’s another of those moments on the album when you realise how much you’ve missed Rammstein and their grim take on industrial metal, and it’s a huge advance on ‘Haifisch’. The comedy metal of ‘Pussy’ follows and it suffers in comparison. Where, as a single, it stands alone as a mildly amusing disco/metal crossbreed, in the context of the album it stands out only as the runt of the litter and with its comedy vocals it sounds perilously close to the Bloodhound gang if they’d worshipped NIN instead of Metallica. All is forgiven, however, when the over-the-top snare abuse of ‘Liebe ist fur alle da’ kicks in and you can get back to the busy art of banging your head to the laser-tight riffs and the industrial-strength rhythms that permeate the track.

‘Mehr’ opens on a deceptively mellow synth track before the guitars come marching in, shifting the dynamic and laying the groundwork for the mellow ‘Roter Sand’ which veers dangerously close to fellow countrymen the Scorpions with its whistled opener before turning into a brass-band backed and suitably grandiose curtain call. 

Overall Rammstein are never going to create something shockingly original; their blueprint may vary in quality from album to album, but there’s little in the way of surprise here, the band playing it safe while their videos do all the hard work when it comes to stirring up controversy. That’s not to say this is a bad album, far from it, more that it’s not going to convert any new fans to the cause. Simply: those who already like Rammstein will love this record (and undoubtedly rock-club dance floors the country over will be heaving to one or more of the tracks here) but for those who are already unconvinced this offers little to change their minds.  Worth a purchase, but not earth-shattering.

Special Edition Supplementary notes

Available either in standard digi-pack format or as a double disc collector’s edition, both versions of the album are handsomely presented. However fans will undoubtedly want the latter version which features a slip case and a bonus disc with five tracks, none of which are on the album, although ‘Roter Sand (Orchestral Version)’ is a re-working of the album’s closing track. Given that the price difference is negligible, the special edition is assuredly the best bet, although the tracks weren’t available for this review so there is no way of assessing the quality.