Rammstein: Mutter : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

For lots of english speakers, there may be no scarier sound than the German language, especially when it's spit out by a hulking monster-metal dude like Rammstein singer Till Lindemann. Naturally, American teens, especially those of the I-hate-my-mommy variety, have clutched this howling steel-and-strings Deutsch outfit to their hearts as a surefire way to spook their parental units. That's only one of the reasons that Rammstein's second major U.S. release, Mutter ("Mother"), is both funny-funny and funny-creepy. Lindemann introduces the record's opening track, "Mein Herz Brennt," with a morbid wink and the Grimm's fairy-tale-damaged lyric, "My dear children, take good care/I'm the voice from the pillow/I brought you something/I've torn it out of my breast." But the title track - a swirl of Wagnerian strings and anthemic, atomizing guitar - is somehow both heart-wrenching and skull-crushing. As the guitars slam and the vaguely Middle Eastern synths soar, Lindemann shifts between sorrowful crooning and a seething howl, singing, "Don't have a navel on my belly/Mother, Mother!" Sure, it's an ironic play on metalhead machismo, and, of course, it's pretty hilarious to hear a big, strong Teutonic bruiser bellowing for Mama, but it's also something much better: Rammstein evoke a self-loathing and wretchedness that Fred Durst only mimes. The band supersizes the pathos that lurks in the heart of metal music and seizes on a theme: the love that burns, the hate that heals. It's the sort of touchy-feely stuff that most hard bands are afraid to confront - but Rammstein revel in it, and that's why Mutter is so powerful. (RS 867 - April 26, 2001)

PAT BLASHILL