release date: Apr. 2, 2001
format: cd
[album rate; 4 / 5] [3,92]
producer: Jacob Hellner, Rammstein
label: Motor Music - nationality: Germany
Track highlights: 1. "Mein Herz brennt" (5 / 5) - 2. "Links 2-3-4" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Sonne" (4,5 / 5) - 4. "Ich will" - 5. "Feuer frei!" - 6. "Mutter" (4,5 / 5) - 7. "Spieluhr" - 9. "Rein raus"
3rd studio album by Rammstein who continues to work with Swedish producer Jacob Hellner. He has been with the band from the beginning i.e. since 1995.
Compared to the previous album Sehnsucht (1997) the style remains the same. It's a collection of almost brutal energy and with the usual one or two slow songs - the title track and "Nebel" (#11) to balance the high tempo. The recipe worked on the '97 album, so why not repeat the formula with a bunch of new songs, you may ask, and the end result is that the band succeeds like never before.
Mutter is stronger than any of their previous albums, and in hindsight it's also the band's best album ever. It contains several (blasting) great compositions (the first three + the title track).
The album produced several singles - "Sonne" was the first and only to precede the album release, and it was followed by #2, #4, #6 and #5 in that order, and with a total of five single releases. The first single peaked at number #2 on the national singles chart list, and the remainders failed to enter top 10. Nationally, the album topped the charts, which it also did in Austria and in Switzerland, and it was the band's first to sell double platinum (+600.000 copies) in Germany.
The track "Links 2-3-4" is the band's answer to critics accusing it for right-wing and fascist sympathy. In the chorus line it says: "My heart beats to the left, 2-3-4" implying a political stand on the left with supposed allusions to a revolutionary Bertolt Brecht song.
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com, Blender 3 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5 stars ]
2001 Favourite releases: 1. Björk Vespertine - 2. Nathalie Merchant Motherland - 3. Rammstein Mutter
