RAMMSTEIN

Rammstein: Mutter

This latest album from the German pyro fiends sees a truly masterful combination of strong guitar rifts and mellow overturns.

Make no mistake, Rammstein is a nouveau heavy metal band with lots of production polish. Refreshingly, they skip the oh-so-popular temptation to employ seven-string guitars and primal screaming. Rammstein keep their tunes way clean, as they are one seriously tight band. I’d like to see Rammstein vs. Metallica in a battle of the bands. Rammstein is so much more edgy and hard-hitting that I think they could take the aging rockers from San Francisco with their pure- bred power.

Musically Mutter gives you a lot to sink your teeth (or ears) into. The opening track, “Mein herz brennt” is a huge production offering acoustic guitars to gigantic orchestra string sections. The chorus while seemingly angry is catchy and well timed, despite the harshness of the German language; but it can be said that the harshness of the language does add to the power and effectiveness of this album. However by far the best track on the album has to be the powerful yet subtle “sonne”.

This track offers amazing guitar rifts that send you into mosh overload while at the same time offers interesting sound effects and keyboard involvement, which is a major ingredient in this master piece

The other killer track on Mutter is "Feuer Frei!" an insane jam that absolutely explodes into a free-for-all of German metal goodness. The tune is downright evil- sounding and pushes the limits on many a set of speakers.

The most Rob Zombie moment on Mutter is Track 8, "Zwitter." The guitar riff is bright-sounding and like a fuse burning down to a bomb ready to explode. Once again, the use of keyboards adds to the complex production that makes Mutter more than just some candy-ass Glam band – these guys are the real deal.

My favorite track on Mutter is "Adios," which would be the tune that I would pick to sound more like Metallica than the real Metallica does at this point.

Did anyone order a roasted guitarist?!

The guitar riff that the tune builds up to is incendiary, leading to a most definite mosh insanity at a live show.