The Classic Metal Album Reviews:
Title: Sehnsucht
Artist: Rammstein
Label: Motor Music
Release Date: 1997

Rating: 4 Skulls
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    • Reviewed by Solomon:
    Funny thing, I told one of our illustrious staff members what I was reviewing this week and she (who will go unnamed) balked, referring to the band in question as "the Manowar of German techno." Okay, as a Rammstein fan, I had to take some offense to this, but the title is not totally without warrant. Admitting you like this stuff is almost embarassing because, on one hand, the Rammstein song-and-dance is pretty damn silly. Everything from Till Lindemann's over-emphatic, macho bellowing to the gaudy sexual references to the flamethrower guitars, yeah, this is getting a little out-of-hand. These are also good reasons to totally dig it.

    There's a certain guilty pleasure in getting into something like Sehnsucht. Even though the band have to continually fend off charges of fascism, it's kind of hard not to wanna do a little "victory jig" while taking in turbo-charged, Panzer fare like "Sehnsucht," "Tier," "Du Hast" and the head-bashing "Buck Dich" (snicker). Simple, repetitive, power-chord riffage and rhythm like this is only two goose-steps away from a Nuremburg rally, I have to admit. "Klavier" is the album's awkward attempt at a "ballad," but even that track has an epic, "Die Meistersinger" quality that is hard to fully dismiss. Rammstein's appeal relies upon such direct metal/industrial mechanics, as well as the bold use of German as a substitute for the universal musical tongue of English. Lindemann's melodramatic, quasi-operatic delivery can sound corny at times but, strangely, it's something you warm up to rather quickly and want to emulate, feeling the urge to sing along with some comrades of yours, clanking beer mugs and all that. You'd think the language barrier would have been a serious block towards US domination, but Sehnsucht cracked the American Top 20 anyway and became the Fatherland's biggest metal export since the Scorps. Good, dirty, sturm-und-drang instrument bashing for when that right-wing mood hits you.
    4 out of 5

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