For those of you who don't know what Rammstein is, I suggest you go to Rammstein.com, their English site, or Rammstein.de, their German site. For those of you who are too goddamn lazy to go there, they are those guys who wrote "Du Hast."
So anyway, I aquired a copy of Rammstein's latest album. I realize that it's been out for a few months now, but I haven't really had a chance to just sit down and listen to it until now.
Well, after listening to it a first time, I knew "Reise Reise" wouldn't be good as "Mutter" or "Sehnsucht" (two of the band's earlier releases). I'm not entirely sure why I felt this way, but there was nothing about it that made me think 'this is really great!' In fact, some songs almost *gasp* reminded me of some of the rap-metal crap that passes off as music nowadays. Well, on second thought, thats a bit harsh. There were some parts with boring rapped lyrics, (no entire songs were like this, thank god) but at least it still had a Rammstein-ish feel to it and didn't make me want to gnaw my own leg off. Some of the songs I even liked enough to play a few times.
As for the individual songs:
1. Reise, Reise -- The first time I listened to this song, I wasn't particularly impressed. However, after listening to it a few times, I found it to be kind of catchy. Its pretty good, but nowhere near as good as "Mein Herz Brennt," the opening track of the "Mutter" album.
2. Mein Tiel -- I must say, the beginning of this song was not very good, since the lyrics were rapped. Not good. However, as soon as the song took off, it got a little better. Some parts almost reminded me of "Tier" and "Du Hast." I also liked the creepy ending. A decent song, but nothing I need to hear on a regular basis.
3. Dalai Lama -- This song was decent, but it was too similar to other songs on this album, and didn't really do anything creative. This song followed the same formula as almost all of the songs, and was really nothing more than filler material. I did like the keyboard part towards the end of the song, however.
4. Keine Lust -- This song begins with vaguely middle eastern-sounding instrumentals which were quite nice, but I did not like the guitar riff that followed. At that point the song basically sucked, but after a while the song got better. This song would have been more appropriately titled "Generic Rammstein Song."
5. Los -- This song starts out sounding a lot like "Dalai Lama." It is incredibly repetitive, but its pretty catchy. It's the kind of song that gets stuck in your head easily.
6. Amerika -- The song itself..meh..The main line is in English, but the rest is in German. So unless you speak German, you won't see whats so great about this song. However, the music video is freakin' hilarious. If you have iTunes, you can watch it for free on the iTunes Music Store. Without the video, the song isn't that great..
7. Moskau -- More of the same. The only thing the least bit unique about it is the female vocalist in the background.
8. Morgenstern -- Nice choral opening. The rest is boring, but for some odd reason, I like it anyway.
9. Stein Um Stein -- Towards the beginning of the song it sounds almost like a ballad. At least, until the guitars kick in and the lead singer begins to scream. The beginning of the song puts you to sleep, but once the song kicks into high gear, it wakes you up and sends chills down your spine. In that sense, it is quite similar to "Mein Herz Brennt," except nowhere near as good.
10. Ohne Dich -- This song also starts out ballad-like, with orchaestral music in the background. In general, this song is much gentler than the rest of the album, even when the heavy guitar riffs kick in. This song is very dramatic. Definitely one of the high points of the album.
11. Amour -- Another ballad type song. It is pretty good, but not nearly as much so as "Ohne Dich."
To wrap things up: