As you know, Rammstein is currently recording their sixth album in California. It looks like they are making good progress, too. Rammstein.com has been updated with a video of Christoph pounding out the rhythms of a new song on the drums. From the sound of it, only Flake and Till have recorded their parts by the time this video was made. You can’t hear any guitars in the song, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be any.

Watch the video now on Rammstein.com and let us know what you think in the comments below. If you’re sneaky, you can figure out how to download it, too.

Mina Harker goes Tiefer on debut album

Do you remember the awesome remix version of Rammstein’s Ohne Dich by Laibach and Mina Harker? Well, now Mina Harker has finally, just about a week ago on October 31st, released her very first album titled Tiefer. Tiefer seems to be a very promising blend of gothic, industrial, rock and poppy things with Harker’s great voice on top of it all. On top of ten other rock-pop-goth songs, there’s also a duet with Dero from Oomph!, who Harker will be supporting on their German tour for the successful album Monster.

You can check several samples from the album, including the aforementioned duet with Dero, on Mina Harker’s MySpace site. Tiefer is obtainable from most stores, like EMP.de for 15,99 €, Infrarot.de for 14,99 €, Out of Line Shop for 12,99 € or Isotank for $19,99.

You’ll find the track listing for the album after the break.

Blutengel presses onwards with new single Dancing in the Light

Just a couple of months have passed since Blutengel released their huge live DVD set Moments of our LIVEs. Now the band is back at it again: a new single, titled Dancing in the Light, will be dancing in the light of day in nine days on 14th November! The single will be a teaser for the next album, which is scheduled to be released sometime early next year, and there’s going to be two different variations of the single. Both Dancing in the Light (”Forsaken”) and Dancing in the Light (”Solitary”) will feature the title track, a music video, an exclusive remix and two extra songs. The remixes and the bonus tracks are, of course, all different on both versions.

You can catch a trailer for the single here. The single seems to be orderable from just about everywhere, for example EMP.de has both versions (Solitary, Forsaken) for 6,99 €, Isotank has them (Solitary, Forsaken) for $9,99 each and Out of Line Shop has a bundle with both versions for 11,98 €.

And now for the piece of news countless people have been waiting for…

Rammstein begins recording of the new album

Yeah, that’s right, the NDH band that made the genre popular around the world has finally started recording their next album. The newly updated official website has been stripped of the Völkerball-look that’s been annoying eager fans for a couple of years by not displaying any updates at all with a simple black-and-gray style. Also, just about everything on the site has also been cleaned up and replaced with a newspost stating that recording will commence on November 9th in a studio in San Fransisco, while the drum tracks are being worked on in Los Angeles. Not much yet, but darned if I’m not excited. Rammstein’s definitely not my favourite German band anymore, but they bloody well do deserve the praise and the success they’ve had for their efforts in making German music (and German altogether) more popular all around the globe.

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If you’re a big Rammstein fan, you probably know that the band’s name was inspired by a tragic airshow accident that occured at the Ramstein airbase. It happened 20 years ago on this day, August 28th, 1988, in what was West Germany at the time. The Italian Air Force’s show team Frecce Tricolori was performing a maneuver known as the “pierced heart” when 3 planes suddenly collided in mid-air and plunged into the crowd below. Sadly, 70 people were killed including the 3 pilots, and an additional 346 spectators were seriously injured.

Let’s take a moment to remember this event and the people who died on that day. Then, get our your Herzeleid CD and listen to the song “Rammstein” which was created in memory of this disaster. Music always sounds better when you know what emotions inspired it.

I recently did an interview with 2 of the members of Beloved Enemy. Peter, who is the band’s main contributor, was previously in Fiddler’s Green before venturing into darker and heavier styles of music. Eddy is the band’s live bassist and also writes for Laut.de. Beloved Enemy’s singer, Ski, and their drummer, Dog, were unavailable for comment.

The interview is fairly long, so I hid it under the cut. (more…)

This week, Arndt has a very special Radio Goethe podcast for us. The entire show is dedicated to the most internationally successful German band ever. Of course, I’m talking about Rammstein. Not only does the show offer songs from nearly every Rammstein album, but it is also laced with clips from a recent interview Radio Goethe had with Paul Landers, one of Rammstein’s guitarists. So open up iTunes or start streaming the show from RadioGoethe.org and listen to history.

This week’s Radio Goethe podcast playlist
Rammstein: Wollt ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen
Rammstein: Du hast
Rammstein: Mein Herz brennt
Rammstein: Amerika
Rammstein: Spring
Rammstein: Sehnsucht
Rammstein: Weisses Fleisch
Rammstein: Links 2 3 4
Rammstein: Mein Teil
Rammstein: Ich will
Rammstein: Feuer frei (live)

Some of you know that Rammstein’s keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz was a member of the East-German punk band Feeling B back in his younger days, long before Rammstein was ever thought of. Not many people have had the opportunity to hear many of the older Feeling B recordings, and then the band split up in 1993 when Flake later became part of Rammstein. Skip ahead five albums, and we arrive at the image of Rammstein on hiatus after releasing Rosenrot. The band members had a lot of free time on their hands. Some of them spent it relaxing and some of them spent it working on other musical projects. Flake spent a good part of his time digging through his archives to find the old Feeling B music.

Grün & Blau is partially a retrospective of Feeling B’s past songs and partially the long-awaited debut of some songs that were long thought to be lost. The album contains thirteen songs that Flake mixed and remastered so they sound more like how the band originally envisioned them years ago. There will be 2 versions available: The standard jewelcase version will be released on October 19th (according to most sources I’ve seen). The limited edition version will be accompanied by a hardcover book (some sources say 120 page, some say 160) where Flake discusses Feeling B, which will be released on November 9th.

Check out Feeling B’s MySpace page to hear what Flake’s music used to sound like. He has certainly come a long way!

Feeling B - Grün & Blau tracklist:
01. Graf Zahl
02. Langeweile
03. Dufte
04. Frosch im Brunnen
05. Herzschrittmacher
06. Keine Zeit
07. Häßlich
08. Gipfel
09. Schlendrian
10. Wieder keine Zeit
11. Spacerace
12. Veris Dulcis
13. Grün & Blau

The United States always seems to be the last country to get any Rammstein release lately, and the Völkerball live CD and DVD set is no different. While the rest of the world took delivery almost a year ago in November of 2006, Völkerball is finally being released today here in America. The content for the American release is pretty much the same as the original one, with concert video footage and audio recordings from some of Rammstein’s live shows in France, England, Russia, and Japan, plus various other bonuses. But instead of having 5 different versions like the rest of the world got, Rammstein is only releasing 3 versions here. Good thing, too, because all those different versions caused a lot of headaches and confusion last year. Let me explain exactly what’s in each American version for you:

Völkerball versions

• Standard Edition
  1 DVD with 140 minutes of concert footage
  1 CD with 75 minutes of concert recordings
• Special Edition
  1 DVD with 140 minutes of concert footage
  1 CD with 75 minutes of concert recordings
  1 DVD with 90 minutes of documentaries
• Limited Edition
  1 DVD with 140 minutes of concert footage
  1 DVD with 90 minutes of documentaries
  2 CDs with entire concert recording
  All packaged in a 190-page hardcover tour photo book

Also, to support the release of Völkerball in the U.S., Rammstein giving away a Richard Kruspe signature ESP guitar signed by all the band members. Just visit this website to enter the contest.

Continue reading after the jump for the tracklisting of each individual disc
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The Finnish masters of the cello Apocalyptica released their new album Worlds Collide on Friday the 14th in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It was released today (September 17th) in most of the rest of the world, with a few other countries later in the month. The album features a wide range of guest musicians including Till Lindemann from Rammstein, Corey Taylor from Slipknot and Stone Sour, Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil, Adam Gontier from Three Days Grace, and the Japanese actor and musician Tomoyasu Hotei. The album was also produced by Jacob Hellner, best known for his work with Rammstein and Clawfinger.

Apocalyptica and Rammstein have a long history working together, and Worlds Collide marks yet another notable collaboration. For the new album, Till sings a German-language cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” or “Helden” in German. I haven’t heard this particular song yet (although I am looking forward to it), but I do like the other songs I’ve heard from the album. The single “I’m Not Jesus” which features Corey Taylor singing is a great song. And as always, Apocalyptica uses their cellos as an amazing substitute for low-tuned electric guitars. Sometimes I wonder if the cellos are better…

Check out some of the new Apocalyptica songs on their MySpace page.

Worlds Collide tracklist
01. Worlds Collide
02. Grace (feat. Tomoyasu Hotei)
03. I’m Not Jesus (feat. Corey Taylor)
04. Ion
05. Helden (feat. Till Lindemann)
06. Stroke
07. Last Hope (feat. Dave Lombardo)
08. I Don’t Care (feat. Adam Gontier)
09. Burn
10. S.O.S. (Anything But Love) (feat. Cristina Scabbia)
11. Peace
Bonus tracks on the deluxe edition
12. Ural
13. Dreamer

B.O.S.C.H. is another up and coming electro-metal band from Germany. They haven’t released an album yet, but ever since DeutscheMusik.net featured them back in April, I’ve heard people talking about their music non-stop. And for good reason. Their combination of simple, gritty guitars and smooth synths is one of the best things your ears will ever have the pleasure of hearing. Come to think of it, I think B.O.S.C.H. is kind of like the German equivalent of the (awesome) Finnish band Turmion Kätilöt.

Fans have been listening to the 5 songs on the band’s MySpace page for months, awaiting an album release at some unknown point in the future. Fortunately for us, B.O.S.C.H. has decided to release a rough mix of their new song “Spiegel” on the Razor Blade Dance Floor podcast. This episode of the podcast is focused on industrial-metal music and how it has evolved over the years and includes a few good tracks by (some German) bands including Rammstein, Die Krupps, Ministry, and Fear Factory, but the B.O.S.C.H. song is at the very end since the playlist is in chronological order. You can listen to the whole thing or just skip ahead to hear “Spiegel”. Either way, you need to hear this song if you like any kind of industrial-metal.

Someone made a stop-motion music video for Rammstein’s “Feuer Frei!” made entirely out of Legos! Just the idea of this alone is awesome. This video really blows me away. The attention to detail is incredible! The band members’ hands and bodies are moving along with the music, their facial expressions change with the tone of the music, and there’s even Lego fire. You just have to watch this. Enjoy!

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=qxUZUnRwH7s