Is the end nigh for Rammstein?

Have they mellowed with age? Is this a farewell album? The Rammstein community is looking forward to the new album "Zeit" — but people are irritated because the songs follow a kind of doomsday mood while the promo campaign for the album, to be released on April 29, was comparatively peaceful.

While the band once again came up with creative promotion, no taboos were broken as on the last, untitled, album. Back then, a short video sequence suggested an execution scene in a Nazi concentration camp — which had critics up in arms.

Two singles from the new album are out already — finally, the fans got to hear new Rammstein material again, recorded in a studio in France's Provence after three years of studio abstinence and the twice-postponed "Giga" tour. In November 2021 Till Lindemann had people's attention when he released a duet with the French singer Zaz.

Studio album No. 8

March 2022 saw the first single release from the eponymous eighth studio album, complete with a countdown: "Zeit" (Time).

The song's lyrics are about the desire to stop time, to stop the transience of life — but death takes no heed. Scenes running backwards appear in the video, soldiers and partisans appear, births, dying people. Death is omnipresent as a faceless but not frightening figure in a black hooded cape. It is a contemplative song that does not go for the usual heavy Rammstein sound.

In April, the second single, "Zick Zack," showed Rammstein in their musical element, and Lindemann with the usual sharp, ferocious rhymes. The musicians unleash their anger at beauty mania. The song was announced with great fanfare — including the fake news that Rammstein had opened a beauty clinic in Berlin. They actually sold a beauty magazine they named Zick Zack Magazine in a special Rammstein kiosk on Alexanderplatz square in Berlin, including a two-track single CD. It was quickly sold out.

Midnight sales

The nondigital recordings are likely to be sold out just as quickly, at least at Dussmann, a department store scheduled to open its doors to to Rammstein fans at the stroke of midnight on Friday. The first 500 CDs include a poster. "Zeit" will be released as a standard CD with a 20-page booklet, as a special edition CD with a 56-page booklet, and on vinyl with a 20-page booklet in large format.

On Thursday, hours before the official album release, fans worldwide have the exclusive opportunity to experience the 11 new songs in Dolby Atmos sound in cinemas.

Is it a farewell album?

The titles of the 11 tracks sound like true Rammstein songs, including "Armee der Tristen" (Army of the Dismal Ones), "Schwarz" (Black) and "Giftig" (Poisonous). However, some of the lyrics ("When our time has come, then it's time to go") suggest that this could be the last Rammstein album.

A line in the last song on the album, "Adieu," has an allusion to the 2001 song "Sonne:" "Even the sun will burn up."

Certainly the line "One last song, one last kiss, a miracle is not about to happen" doesn't bode well.

But, first, the band is off on a big stadium tour. Hundreds of thousands of fans have had tickets for two years and now can finally go see the concerts. The European tour starts on May 15 in Prague in the Czech Republic and ends on August 4 in Ostend, Belgium. Beginning on August 21, the band tours the Americas, from Canada to Mexico.

This article was originally written in German.