Let’s face the hard truth rockers. We are at a time where many of rock and metal’s biggest names are beginning to bow out. Rush and Motörhead did so without a big farewell tour while Motley Crüe and Black Sabbath took full advantage of the fanfare to say goodbye. Now as of the time I’m writing this Slayer, Ozzy Osbourne, and Kiss are taking their turn to say so long to their loyal fans. Will Rammstein be the next on that list?
As reported by Loudwire yesterday, Rammstein guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe stated in a recent interview that their next album is being mixed next month with a scheduled release of sometime in 2019 with a three year tour to follow. Sure nothing was said that this is it for Rammstein but the signs are there.
The new album will be coming TEN YEARS since the previous one. Sure Liebe ist für alle da was huge, and came four years after Rosenrot, it wasn’t an epic decades long album. Even by today’s music cycle a decade between albums of new material is rare and only matched by Guns N Roses (15 years between The Spaghetti Incident from 1993 and Chinese Democracy from 2008) and Metallica (8 years between Death Magnetic from 2008 and Hardwired…To Self Destruct from 2016). And while neither of those bands announced retirement (yet), all three aren’t getting any younger.
Rammstein was in their late 20s and early 30s when the band first formed in 1994. Sure Til Lindemann looks and sounds like a spring chicken at 55 compared to others that have been going longer but they’ve put in tons of miles and years on the road with one of the best live shows in all of music.
Each tour they bring a full show and never cut corners or phone it in or expect the crowd to sing for them. Their last show here in the New York Area was June of 2017 at a SOLD OUT Jones Beach Amphitheater, I was there. That night felt like a test. Rammstein was testing to USA with a few shows to see if a tour was still possible for them in today’s current state of music.
Now we sit on the eve of a long awaited new album from Rammstein and tour. Adding up the pieces – ten years between albums, a band not getting younger with an intense stage show, and a music industry where album and concert sales are a fight – these pieces along with the not yet announced tour to last three years has hints of what could be Rammstein’s last time out.