Mutter

"Mutter" is my full-album introduction to the German metal-electronic outfit Rammstein, and I must say it is a stunning one. I was relatively familiar with the band, I had listened to some of the top songs, and was a little doubtful going in if the album as a whole would stand up. I am VERY happy to report those fears were unfounded. :)

"Mutter" is a marching, grand, and sometimes sublime album that might be able to substitute for preworkout. "Mein Herz brennt" and "Spieluhr" resonate with me the most emotionally for their ability to conjure that beautiful, melodramatic energy more than anything else on the album. To me, these songs represent a specific part of what makes Rammstein so special—to elevate the heavy into something more sometimes alike in sound to an orchestra or choir.

I would've thought this album would be one-sided in terms of quality—"After all, all the most famous songs are on one side!" I was WROOOOONG. There are points where the second half sounds derivative of the first (e.g. the tempo and sound of "Zwitter" as opposed to "Feuer frei!" and the solo-guitar portion of "Adios" sounding similar to an alike part in "Ich will"), but I'm not sure I'm qualified enough to say if that's on fault of the musicianship or if it simply comes with the territory. Some songs are similar, but I think for the most part they all manage to stand out for their own reasons.

I sometimes am asked to define what Rammstein is, to which I'll reply, "industrial," since I assume 9 out of 10 people I meet on the street don't know the technical term for the specific movement Rammstein helped pioneer. But that's a little reductive, in my non-expert opinion. On "Mutter" (as throughout their discography), Rammstein injects a known sound with an orchestration and dramatism that make the sound distinctly theirs—distinctly Neue Deutsche Härte.

Willkommen in Deutschland.