Sometimes the least “metal” photos make for the best captions, as was the case with last week’s contest; those foil masks were ripe for the punning. The Slipknot refs were too obvious, so this complete nonsequitur made me laugh the most:

• Jim: “The TV reception in their house was the fucking bomb.”

This week we’ve got copies of Rammstein’s “Mein Land” single on both vinyl and CD to give away to one winner. These were only distributed in Europe from Universal Germany, so they’re something of a rare item in the U.S. The CD has a pop-out flap of all the guys on surfboards (pictured here along with the 7″), per the imagery in their official “Mein Land” video; zexy! Rammstein’s retrospective album Made In Germany: 1995-2011 comes out on December 13th and can be pre-ordered here. To win, leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (sent in by MS reader Harley Tallent). Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re using FB Connect / Twitter etc).

Rammstein are bona fide superstars now, huh? Last year I saw their first U.S. show in a decade at Madison Square Garden, and the concert sold out in like an eighth of a second or something ridiculous like that; then, earlier this year, Vince and I caught them again in New Jersey, and that show was sold out, too. And now the band has announced another North American tour, although by the time it starts, it will have been a year since the last one. But even if it had only been a week, I’d bet on Rammstein continuing to sell out every stop on the tour. And good for them! They might be their generation’s Kiss (except less, y’know, slimey) — they truly put on a show like no other.

In fact, even if you’ve seen them before, you’re probably gonna wanna see them again; that would be the case if they were doing the same exact show as last time, ’cause that show was that good, but now they have a ridiculous new stage and probably all kinds of new tricks up their sleeve. And if you haven’t seen them before… wow, wow, wow, you really, really need to. SO. MUCH. FUN.

Dates are after the jump…

Click to read more…

Rammstein certainly understand the value of theatricality in metal, which must be why they’re one of the very few bands who pretty much never fail to ensure that their music videos are awesome. Their latest clip, for the new single “Mein Land,” is no exception. It parodies old ’60s Frankie & Annette-style beach movies and Baywatch, to boot, and, yes, it is incredibly entertaining from start to finish, as the band wrings humour out of sort of playing against type (Smiles! Bright colors! Sunshine!) but not really (Titties!!!!).

I’m especially fond of keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz’s performance; in fact, ever since I saw the band live for the first time last year, I’ve been kind of enamored of Lorenz. In a band full of weirdos, he somehow manages to delightfully be the weirdest.

BTW, this video should probably be considered NSFW, even though there’s a lot less nudity than in some other Rammstein videos.

“Mein Land” will appear on Rammstein’s new greatest hits collection, Made In Germany 1995-2011, which comes out December 2 via Universal.

-AR

Axl and I couldn’t stop raving about the Rammstein show we saw this past May for weeks afterward. The lights! The FIRE! The PYRO! The dude who gets lit on fire and runs across the stage! Everything about the whole damned show! Many would argue that Rammstein employ these gimmicks to distract attention away from their music, but they still put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and I think they happen to have some super-catchy shout-along anthems as well. Like, Korn could put on a show like this and they’d still suck.

But that was May. And now it’s November. Meaning Rammstein have had six whole month to up the “holy shit” factor in their live show to even greater heights. Here they are opening Sunday night’s show in Bratislava, Slovakia; a bridge drops down from the arena ceiling connecting the venue’s two (!) stages and… holy shit, just watch. Here’s to hoping they’re bringing this show to the U.S. soon; A+++ would DEFINITELY do business with again.

-VN

Thanks: Luis Fernando Pizano Escalante

The mighty mighty Rammstein are getting ready to release a greatest hits collection, Made In Germany 1995-2011, which will include a new single, as so many greatest hits collections do. And while the compilation itself does not yet have a release date, that new single, “Mein Land,” will be available on November 11, and now the cover art has been released.

And it’s fucking great. Just… fucking… great.

The band is also working on a video for the song, which will be released at the same time as the single; if their past videos are any indication, it will also be completely fucking amazing.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

So, to review the ways in bass players let us down this week:

• Coheed and Cambria’s Michael Todd robbed a pharmacy.
• Nick Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss held his girlfriend hostage in a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team.
• Jeroen Paul Thessling quit Obscura.

D’OH! Vince posted this back in 2009. Yep, we’ve now been doing this for so long that I can’t even remember what idiotic shit we’ve already posted. Oh, well. As Vince put it, “It’s still funny!”

When Rammstein play a live show, they really do include pretty everything but the kitchen sink: fire, lasers, fire, exploding babies, fire, a cock-shaped cannon that cums on the audience, fire, a blow-up raft, fire, costume changes, and fire, to give you but  few examples.

But if Rammstein start incoporating Muppets into their routine, well, then they’ll really have a great show on their hands.

-AR

Thanks to Jonathan Kienzle for the vid!

This video of Rammstein performing their biggest hit “Du Hast” on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week doesn’t even come close to the number and magnitude of fire, explosions, lights and other stage spectacles that the band brought when we saw them in New Jersey a couple of weeks back. Still, it does give you some idea of what a live Rammstein show is like, and since it’s pro-shot it’s much better than the fan-filmed videos we posted. So just imagine what you see below and multiply everything by two, including the size of the stage, and you’ve got it. Make sure you stay with this video until they light the guy on fire (srsly).

How many times do we think Kimmel practiced the title of Rammstein’s latest album before introducing the band? Also, how much do we think Rammstein got paid to play one song on national TV? Great exposure either way.

-VN

[via Metal Insider]

Axl and I went to Rammstein last Thursday at the Meadowlands Arena (now “Izod Center”) in New Jersey, a surprisingly bearable 45-minute public transit ride from Manhattan. Axl had seen Rammstein when they played Madison Square Garden last fall; me, I was a Rammstein noob. I had an inkling of what was in store, but nothing could possibly have prepared me for the spectacle that is a Rammstein show.

So, I think I can speak for Axl too when I present to you my thoughts on the show:

FIRE!

FIRE! (starts at 1:10… then be patient):

After the jump, guess what? More FIRE!

Click to read more…

Since summer and, thus, summer festivals are almost upon us, I thought I’d take a closer look at Sonisphere, one of the biggest European music festivals. Mostly because I wanted to do some research on it, since  it’s the only festival in which I am indulging this year. Probably.

(Note: I don’t much like festivals, especially ones that are outdoors. The bands I like never play for that long ,and unless I want to be stuck in the way back, I have to suffer through all the other artists just to get a decent spot. Not to mention, the weather. I hate hot weather. I swear to God I was born with menopause, because I’m always having hot flashes. I try to spend my summers carefully planning my routes with air conditioning and avoiding any chance of getting damp that isn’t shower or pool/sea/any body of water-related. But no one likes a cranky, sweaty bitch, and I split my time between two especially humid cities, so I grit my teeth and steel myself for my few months of personal hell.)

The Sonisphere Festival has been around only since 2009, when Stuart Galbraith joined the events company Kilimanjaro Live. His idea was to hold a series of events that would change and adapt to wherever they were being held. That’s what is really interesting about Sonisphere — unlike a traveling festival with one specific list of musicians and bands that tour the continent, they have a changing roster of artists for each “territory.” In 2009, the Germany date featured Die Toten Hosen and The Prodigy, adding a more punk and house air to the festival, while the Sweden shows featured The Cult and Primal Scream to suit their audience. Of course, there are bands that headline each show (in this case it was Metallica), but I’ve never seen audience preference be such a priority for a huge festival.

Click to read more…

Once upon a time I pitched Mike Portnoy (through his people) on doing a “Jew on Jew” interview and he turned me down, that persnickety bastid (the Jew on Jew concept did up yielding some fun interviews with Daath’s Eyal Levi [before he was an MS columnist], Genghis Tron’s Mookie Singerman and Orphaned Land’s Kobi Farhi). And here Metal Injection’s Rob Pasbani goes and inadvertently gets all Jewy with Portnoy on the Golden Gods black carpet — over who else, the hero of Jewish men everywhere, Larry David.

It’s all about the shirt. When I first discovered the Larry DavHead shirt last year I immediately bought 10 of them; shirts like this don’t come around every day, ya know? Rob and about 159 other Jewish metalheads I know also bought the shirt; it’s, like, possibly the best t-shirt in the history of ever. So when Rob donned the Larry DavHead shirt underneath his sparkly silver coat on the black carpet, Mike Portnoy was all over that shit like a swarming pack of flies. Watch:

Last post about the Golden Gods and then we’ll shut up about it… I can’t help that Metal Injection’s black carpet interviews are so damn entertaining. After the jump, a quickee with two members of Rammstein; unfortunately there were no cameras around when Till Lindemann was hitting on every piece of ass within a 2 foot radius, but the mental video I took will provide laughs forever and ever. Check out the rest of Metal Injection’s black carpet footage below the video here.

Click to read more…

You may recall that back in December I saw Rammstein at their sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, and I had an awesome time. If you’re too lazy to read my review, I can sum it up for you in twenty-nine seconds:

Yep. It’s setting dudes on fire live on stage for the win.

At the time, the MSG gig was Rammstein’s first, and last, American show in a decade; in fact, at the time they only played one other North American show, in Montreal. But good news for everyone who didn’t get to see one of those two gigs: the band has announced nine more North American dates for the spring.

Click to read more…

Souvenir ticket thinger that was handed out for free at the show. Beats paying sixty bucks for a t-shirt!

I’m not sure if Rammstein played the best show of the year at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday night — but if they didn’t, they certainly came close.

It was the band’s first and only show in America in ten years, and had sold out in thirty minutes, so expectations were understandably pretty high. Personally, I’d never seen the band before — I can’t even claim to be that big a Rammstein fan, in all honesty — but I’d heard so many amazing things about their live performances that I was dying to check ‘em out.

And they delivered in every way. In fact, they more than delivered. I am now a Rammstein fan.

I’m not gonna talk about the music too much. I know that probably seems weird since the music is more important (in theory at least) than the band’s theatrics, but, really, by this point, you know Rammstein, you know their music, and you know how you feel about it. They’re (obviously) not a jam band, so there were no real surprises in that regard — Rammstein lives sounds more or less like Rammstein in the studio.

But the performance… oh, the performance… it’s full of stars!

Here’s some of the shit the crowd was treated to during the course of the band’s nearly two-hour performance:

Click to read more…

I used to have a fresh-off-the-boat Indian friend who had a somewhat tenuous grasp on English expletives and he’d always crack us up with his misuse of dirty words, kind of like a real-life version of Fes from That ’70s Show. He’d use the word “balls” as a derogatory expletive; “Balls to that!” or “That’s Balls!” if he didn’t like something. Sometimes he’d get his syntax confused and end up uttering gems like the following, intended as an insult: “I will fuck you in the ass!” We erupted in laughter before explaining the implications of what he’d actually just said. Of course this has nothing to do with last week’s Photo Caption Contest, but I thought of it because the winner calls himself “balls”:

• “After trying to remove his boots for over 3 hours, a young Devin Townsend gave up on black metal and decided to take a different musical direction.”

So, Sir Balls, congrats; you win a trio of Sepulchral Production black metal albums. This week, in celebration of Rammstein’s upcoming December 11th gig at Madison Square Garden in NYC — their only U.S. date, which sold out in like 30 seconds — we’re giving away Rammstein’s entire discography to one lucky winner! That includes the following studio albums: Herzeleid, Sehnsucht, Mutter, Reise Reise, Rosenrot, and their latest, Liebe ist für alle da (Deluxe); and the live albums Live Aus Berlin and Volkerball.

This week’s photo comes from reader Sean Page; the fine specimen pictured is his friend Ryan of Long Island band Elysian Fields who I just so happened to have shrugged off just last week [apparently it's a different band of the same name. -Ed.] . The rules as per usual: just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!

A reader calling him (or her, but probably him)self “K S” sent us the below track, which is apparently called “MINÄ MÄÄRÄÄN!”, and is by a Finnish industrial band called Turmion Kätilöt.

Holy shit, could there be any more umlauts up there? Mötley Crüe are suffering from some serious umlaut envy right now.

ANYWAY, K S suggested that this band might be better than Rammstein, and I have to disagree. This songs features what has to be one of the more generic industrial riffs I’ve ever heard. I know that most industrial riffs are kinda basic, but there’s a massive difference between this and the epic, pseudo-symphonic majesty of Rammstein’s “Mein Herz brennt,” or even the filthy, scummy, punch-you-in-the-face-for-no-reason guitars that power My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s “After the Flesh.” The below song is just, like, industrial’s answer to a Triple A riff.

Check out Turmion Kätilöt below, and let K S know what you think in the comments section.

-AR

I must admit I’m quite fascinated by the idea of seeing Rammstein live at Madison Square Garden on December 11th, at what will be their first U.S. appearance since 2001. The band’s most recent album Liebe ist für alle da — featuring the now famous music video porn film “Pussy” — has gone on to sell 16 million copies (!!!) worldwide since its release last year, although how many of those were the special Dildo Boxset edition we can’t say, and this will be their only U.S. appearance on this tour.

But who cares about album sales? When it comes to Rammstein I want fire and a full-blown, completely over-the-top stage production! And according to the press release sent out about this show, we’re gonna get it: “Their formidable live show traversed Europe in twenty 18-wheelers packed with pyrotechnics, flame-throwers, bazookas and enough ordnance to level a small country.” Holy smokes; I can’t imagine they’ll be flying all that gear with them to the U.S. for one show, but I’m sure we’re still in for a treat. Count me in for this one.

Tickets go on sale on Friday, October 8 at NOON (EDT) and are available at www.ticketmaster.com and www.thegarden.com. The band also has a series of shows lined up in Central and South America immediately prior to the NYC date, so check those dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Here are the some of the things you will see in “Haifisch” (which apparently means “shark fish”), the latest cinemetallic oddity from the whacky Krauts in Rammstein:

1. A cat fight at a funeral.
2. A woman peeing beside a grave.
3. Some dude getting set on fire.
4. A car exploding.
5. A dude dressed like Snow White spanking some other dude who I guess is supposed to be a dwarf.
6. A picture of James Hetfield.
7. Some murderous mountain climbers.
8. Homicide on the moon.
9. A recreation of the off-screen “feed the fat  fuck to death” sequence from the movie Seven.
10. A girl in a bikini licking a stamp suggestively.

What the fuck does any of it MEAN? I think there’s a vague storyline about someone faking his own death maybe, but I’m not really sure. Does it matter? Whatever else you wanna say about Rammstein, you can’t accuse them of failing to make memorable videos…

They shoulda released this thing on 4/20…

-AR

How does he do it? Between writing and recording four albums, touring, producing, taking over our site for an entire day and being a proud Canadian family man, Devin Townsend somehow still found time to do a remix of Rammstein’s track “Rammlied” from their oftentimes pornographic 2009 release Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da.

Rammstein are always good for some fun headbanging as is Mr. Townsend, and thankfully the results are as good in reality as they might seem on paper. Stream Devin’s remix, entitled “Rammlied: ‘Rammin’ The Steins’ Remix” below. The remix is actually one of four remixed tracks from Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da that are all included as “B sides” on the digital single for “Ich Tu Dir Weh,” available today on iTunes.

For more fun with Rammstein remixes check out this and this.

-VN

[this promotion has ended]

No porn in this one, sorry folks. But Rammstein do seem to have a knack for aesthetically pleasing videos, even without the boobs and vag.

-VN

[Thanks: Josh Kidd and groverXIII]

The concept of another Rammstein strikes me as kinda silly, because, well, we’ve already got Rammstein. As far as industrial metal songs sung in German go, Rammstein fill that niche rather nicely. But here we’ve got Hanzel Und Gretyl — a band from New York City, no less, singing in faux German accents — doing the exact same thing. Only their songs aren’t as catchy, outrageous or hilarious.

It’s a head-scratcher indeed, but apparently the band has toured the world (with many bigger acts, Rammstein among them, natch), and they’ve got a hometown show coming up on December 19th at Crash Mansion. Maybe there’s a joke I’m just not in on… I don’t get it. Would someone care to inform me why this band exists?

-VN