Rammstein: German metal music - PLAYBACK by Juaniyo Arcellana

The German heavy metal band Rammstein got to be known among the wider music audience when they were mentioned as a favorite band of one of the two thrill killers in Columbine high school in suburban Colorado, who even wore a T-shirt bearing the band’s name.

Eric Harris, the Rammstein fan, and Dylan Klebold gunned down a number of their schoolmates before blowing their own brains out some years ago, shocking America and the rest of the world. Who knows if the music of Rammstein was not in fact playing in their brains as they proceeded with their bloody, grisly mission.

Many years after the two killers and several of their victims were laid to rest, Rammstein has come out with a new CD, their third overall, we learn from a press kit that comes along with the disc. Those age-old questions whether this type of music has subliminal messages in "backward masking" or whether the patently German lyrics said to be neo-Nazi spawn aggressive behavior become academic when listening to Mutter, the new Rammstein release: it is astounding metal, the kind we have not heard the likes of since, say, Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir from 1976’s Physical Graffiti. Clearly there are debts to the old masters, as in the opening cut alone which employs a heady mix of strings, bass and drums above the omnipresent dark riff, indeed echoing the earlier Kashmir. Rammstein however tops it all off with that hideously expectorating lead vocalist, who helps us on our way to transcendental metal madness.

What is it about the German language that makes it tailor-made for heavy metal? Rammstein weave well elements of the Gothic into the main fabric of reliable noise churned out by the guitar-bass-drums setup. Out of the blue there are children singing in the background as if in a chorus, or a woman’s voice like that of a lost soul in some European wilderness.

After Mein Herz Brentt promptly jolts us out of complacency, the second cut Links 2 3 4 showcases crunching chords resembling the sound of a chainsaw.

The use of strings is admittedly not a novelty in heavy metal, since even Metallica came out with its curious albeit bestselling hybrid in concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

And when Metallica set their mind to it, they can be very good, if a bit contrived. Not so with Rammstein, whose use of strings is spare but makes the classical seem a natural twin of metal. For the most part though the band thrives on deadly riffing and slash-and-burn power chords.

The title cut already comes across as a heavy metal classic, the type which, if given sufficient airplay, will become a staple in beer gardens and mini buses across the archipelago. Again language is not much of an issue here, and really cuts both ways: in German mutter means mother, and in English stands for a mumble of some sort. Rammstein with guitars blazing may perhaps be aware of the double entendre.

Of course some might get uncomfortable at listening to lyrics one does not understand, because there is always the possibility that the singer is already warning about the second coming, or trying to sell the devil’s produce.

But there is also the opportunity to sing along and make up one’s own pseudo-German lyrics, with due apologies to the real Deutche, a great language in which Kafka, Rilke, Trakl, Benn wrote: vroken hymen de gudentayt auf Guidaben.

Who knows if it was not the incendiary allegedly neo-Nazi lyrics coupled with the loud rhythmic thumping of the band that drove the teenage killers, who didn’t understand German anyway, to perdition?

That is like speculating that anything sung in German with a heavy metal background is evil and therefore requires congressional investigation if not an outright exorcism.

That a killer was a Rammstein fan is beside the point; although who can deny that the band got a free plug in that photo of Harris wearing their shirt complete with logo?

If he had worn a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt, the effect would not have been the same. After the killings, Rammstein went from relative obscurity to monster-like fame. In Mutter, we begin to understand why, but don’t have to kill or be killed for it.