Good, old-fashioned industrial fun. Rammstein is popular because of it's ability to write songs chock full of humor and shock value. Mutter keeps up the good, half serious, tounge and cheek work started up by Herzeleid (Heartache) and continued by Sehnsucht (Longing).
Take for instance the song "Zwitter", which means "Hemaphodite", and the subsequent song "Rein, Raus" or "In, Out". "Zwitter" is a HILARIOUS song about a man who is in love with himself. You cannot believe that our dear old Till wasn't smiling to himself singing this song with lyrics such as "ich kann mir selber Rosen schicken", and "so bin ich dann auch nicht verzagt wenn einer zu mir "Fick dich" sagt". It's a riot! "Rein, Raus" is a song that makes me wonder about how many times they've watched "A Clockwork Orange", heh. Anyway, this is a graphic song about sex based entirely on the premise of lust, and a speaker that seems to think a lot of himself if you know what I mean. The line "ein Elefant im Nadelöhr" pretty much explains it all.....The bass heavy music is raw, hard, and perfectly complements the animalitic urgencies of the lyrics.
Other songs on Mutter did not do this well. One that comes to mind is "Ich Will", which although fun to play to annoy people on the road (nothing makes people get off your tail faster then playing loud music in another language, ESPECIALLY GERMAN), really doesn't have any feeling behind it, the music is mediocore at best and lyrics that sound like they were written ten minutes before the song was to be recorded. I mean "Könnt ihr mich sehen? Wir sehen dich" yeah, real thought out.
Looking on the brighter side, the title track "Mutter" was a much better song. A song about a cloned child (Hab keinen Nabel auf dem Bauch) that really caught the sense of loss a child with no parents might feel had him/her realized what they were missing. It thoughly gets through to the listener the sorrow and bitterness felt towards his/her mother, that ironically, never existed (Der Mutter die mich nie geboren). So much so that the child believes that it must get his/her "mother's" invisible presence, that he/she feels suicide is not too high a cost to pay (auch wenn ich daran sterben muss). Till's performance on this song is outstanding, and the music, symphony and industrial brought together as one unifying force is nothing less then awe inspiring. Excellent, and open to more interpretation then I have time to give it in a review like this.
"Sonne" (Sun) and "Spieluhr" (Music Box) are probably two songs I'd highly recommend to anyone who has never listened to Rammstein before. "Sonne" is/was a song about a boxer. To make a long story short, the deal with the boxer fell through and the lyrics had to be changed to exclude the details about the boxer in question. However, it's best that the song be interpreted in the sense of it being about a boxer. I mean, how else can you really make any sense of " Sie wird heut Nacht nicht untergehen und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn"? The music is bass heavy, classic industrial metal, and even a bit romantic, too. "Spieluhr" is a song about a dead child who is only remembered on the day of the dead or "Totensonntag". One of the band member's daughters sings a synthizer altered chorus (to make her voice more sexless) with Till, and it is amazing. They add in the song the haunting melody of the music box owned by the descesed child, which plays on its own from time to time to an audience only of the "Der kalte Mond". Even if you decide not to buy the cd, download this song off of whatever file sharing program is available. It's just too good to miss. "Nebel" is a decent enough ballad, though, Till can't really sing ballads well or German is just a horrible language for one. The music is pretty though, and I play it with another band, A Perfect Circle, to fall asleep at night.
"Links, 2,3,4" is a song that really gets on my nerves fast. This whole song is about how they are not right wingers or Nazis. They probably wrote it in hopes that the media would get off their backs about it. However, they forgot one important thing if they were making an appeal to American journalists, as well as German. They wrote the song in German. The ignorant populace of America thinks that they are Nazis is BECAUSE they sing in German, and in Amerika, it's a simple formula: German=Nazi. The song is in German, most Amerikans don't know or want to know German, so the german=nazi formula will remain unchanged for years to come. The problem I have with this song is that it should have never been written. They have nothing to prove. If they say they aren't Nazis, and there is nothing in their music or lives to indicate they are, then it should be left at that. This song, satire or not, shouldn't even attempt to play with the ignorances of the people they wish to plead their case to.
Overall, this was a good cd, that finds it's way on a regular basis into my car and personal cd players. It's fun stuff to sing while driving to scare the hell out of stupid people. I highly recommend it to any fan of industrial, metal, or goth music. I would not recommend it to those faint of heart, are easily offended by wildly suggestive lyrics, or have children under age 5 that understand German running around the house.
Recommended:
