Mutter by Rammstein

Mutter, Rammstein's third album, came out on 2 April 2001 through Motor and Universal Music, and it's the Berlin sextet at their most monumental. Jacob Hellner produced it, and the lineup was the one they've always had: Till Lindemann singing, Richard Kruspe on lead guitar, Paul Landers on rhythm guitar, Oliver Riedel on bass, Christoph Schneider on drums and Christian "Flake" Lorenz on keyboards. As ever, the band built the music first and Lindemann wrote and sang his words over the top.

The sound is industrial metal and Neue Deutsche Härte cut to the scale of a cathedral: riffs that hit like a pile driver, Schneider's drums pounding in lockstep, Flake's keyboards swelling in the background, and Lindemann's bottomless baritone rolling out over all of it like thunder. "Sonne" is a relentless, hammering stomp, "Feuer frei!" snarls and stomps, "Ich will" is built for a stadium to bellow back, and "Mein Herz brennt" builds from an eerie hush into something vast and theatrical.

It was their first album after signing with Universal, following the near four-year world tour for Sehnsucht, and it produced six singles, more than any other Rammstein record, all of them charting across Europe. "Sonne" led the way, reaching No. 2 in Germany. The cover, a photograph of a dead fetus by Daniel & Geo Fuchs, makes sure nobody forgets it, either.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.