Rammstein: Live Aus Berlin

One of the more surreal side effects of April's Columbine massacre was the onslaught of press releases from silly bands that were suddenly forced to publicly distance themselves from their two most misguided fans. Because its lyrics are in German and its music is ham-handed and scary, Rammstein was a favorite of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, proof that when society is looking into the ingredients that make up potential serial killers, an inability to perceive irony should be near the top of the list. Listening to Rammstein's new, 79-minute Live Aus Berlin, you never feel for a moment like anyone's taking this stuff seriously; the sturm und drang is laid on so thick, there are times when you swear you can hear the audience laughing. It certainly should be. For all its lockstep precision, thunderous riffage, and foreboding chants, Live Aus Berlin is about as scary as a junior-high pep rally, with silly-sounding people chanting funny German words in a very funny way. The album itself is, by definition, profoundly inessential: Not only has the band made just two studio albums—a career retrospective isn't in order yet—but its live shows are all about pyrotechnic bombast, a visual element that can't possibly be captured on CD. The recording quality is excellent, the songs ridiculously entertaining (and entertainingly ridiculous), but fans are far better off picking this stuff up on home video or DVD.