8 THINGS WE WANT FROM THE NEW RAMMSTEIN ALBUM

Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. She shaped the current political situation in Europe.

Our minds were clean until Rammstein came along, and there’s no way you can prove otherwise. Being decent, upstanding people, we’re sure that you, like us, were not even aware of the existence of “jazz films” on the internet until forced to watch the video for Pussy via a grumble website. This, after never being able to look at Snow White the same way after the Sonne clip. So, this time we’re expecting to feel grotty every time we, I dunno, put our bus ticket back in our pocket. Something like that. Something everyday, now requiring the washing of hands every time we think about it…

The only proper way to deal with the saga of Brexit, the Gordian Knot of Britain eating itself as the world looks on wondering what the Hell we’re doing, a national-embarrassment version of seeing your dad on the job, is to laugh. In their offbeat, German-League-Of-Gentlemen way, Rammstein would be the perfect people to roast us on a spit made of sheer banter, while also putting everything into an actual, sensible context. The lion’s share of the work was done for them when the words “Hard Brexit” first passed lips, so this has to be a shoo-in. Possibly. Either that or it’s just an industrial-metal rendition of God Save The Queen (not the Sex Pistols one, the National Anthem), with an increasingly loud and obnoxious laugh track over the top, that somehow crescendos into the Benny Hill theme.

We do not really require Rammstein singing in English. There are side projects like Lindemann and Emigrate to play with English words. We think that Till Lindemann is especially strong in writing German lyrics with double meanings. This cannot be so simply achieved in English, since this is not his mother tongue (and he confirmed this in the “Amerika” song by saying “This is not my mother’s tongue”). We expect only German songs, because there are zillions of other bands singing in English already.

Remember what we were saying about being pure, innocent, puritan-like folk? We needed a lie down after hearing the absolute gutter filth Till and co-conspirator Peter Tägtgren got up to on Till’s Skills In Pills solo album. And, actually [adopts Alan Partridge voice], despite what we said earlier, brevity be damned, every song being in English and going into great, some would say unnecessary detail, about weeing on people, prophylactics, a desire to become a cowboy stripper and pills that ‘Keep my boner steep’, had us slapping our thighs with mirth. If there’s any ribald stone left for Till to turn we’re hoping for that. Although unless it involves, I dunno, Mary Berry’s rolling pin, we have no idea what there is left on this front.

Now, we’re not going to get all Dragon’s Den about this because, frankly, we’re not sure how a person is expected to pitch an idea ‘better than the spurting penis on wheels’. And frankly, we don’t want to know. Just make it happen. But where actually do you go from there? A bigger mobile-member that fires even greater quantities of foamy semen? That’s the prop version of Jurassic World’s “More teeth” mission statement. And look where that got them. Do we want Till Lindemann riding around on an aggressive meat-and-two-veg with fangs? Actually, maybe, but the point stands: it’s the bigger, not necessarily better sequel. So we need a song with lyrics that inspire a grander, ahem, climax to a Rammstein show, that isn’t a cock with gnashers. Get to it, lads…