Rammstein
Reise, Reise

THE REVIEW

STRAIGHT FROM THE TEETH.

Here I am sitting in the studio/hovel of Agamemnon, my dear metalhead friend who would be even dearer (and more of a friend) if he didn't... do dentistry!! Oh yes... more than a common dental studio, his looks like a "Tattoo & Piercing" hole, full of flags and posters of various Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Metal-Death-Gothic-Doom-Trash-Dash & Cif Ammoniacal images.

This 120-kilo brute, of which 20 kilos are just piercing, tattooed worse than Trajan's Column and with a long beard that makes him look like the grandfather of ZZ Top, has been insisting for ages that I go to him. The last time he said to me "Aoo, eddaje... echeccevòle, you come, I drill, I seal, I scrub the tartar and you pay me whenever you want" ...And with this last condition, let's say he convinced me, and now here I am, for a throbbing pain in the molar that has been haunting me for 4 days!! I sit on the black leather dental chair with studs, he lowers me down, and turns on the spotlight in my mouth. He then inserts RAMMSTEIN, a German Heavy Metal band with their album titled "Reise, Reise" dated 2004, and begins to "work on my mouth".
While with the drill he slaloms between the gums, I see out of the corner of my eye his lips barely moving as he sings the songs by heart (and with a foul breath!). ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhh.

At the first heavy riff (on the 2nd track "Mein Teil") he detaches from me and uses the drill simulating Paul Landers' guitar shooting his macaronic solo. I lift myself up for a moment and see Agamemnon on his knees finishing the Hendrix-like guitar passage... Holy crap, I think to myself... this looks REALLY TOUGH!!!
"This piece is cool" he tells me "sorry but I can't resist... here I totally immerse myself" and he smiles at me with 32 teeth of which 3 are gold, 4 missing, and one with a diamond launched by Ciccone 4 years ago. "Look, everything's gone..." I say, drying my bloody mouth, but he puts me back down in the seat with a slap. He doesn't know that I'm "the Punisher" and that I could destroy him with nothing, but in the name of old friendship, I let him do it. Worst case, he'll destroy my mouth, I think to calm myself. ZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhh.

The third piece is the usual pseudo-nazi-like march (it seems the group has some "sympathies" about that!) and the trend proceeds more or less on the same wavelength... heavy metal, slow as a funeral march on a mountain path, heavy as the step of a 200 kg zombie, indigestible as peppers in the morning's milk coffee. We thus need to arrive at track 9 to slow the march to goose steps... indeed we are slightly calmer but, ironically, it is here that my butcher makes a mistake and exits the tooth, piercing my gum in three places. ZzzzzzzzzzzzzhhAHH!!!
I have a jolt but he retorts: "Relax... these guys... relax me, it's a pleasure." and turns up the volume knob by 2 notches. "To hell with you..." I think as my faithful dog Stronko plays with the two parrots at the entrance, ignoring my more than embarrassing situation. ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhh.

So between flying gum pieces (skillfully slapped up by Stronko who, after swallowing the two parakeets, regurgitates everything worse than a toilet!) and Agamemnon making a mess of my mouth, I decide to apply Zen philosophy and focus on the music I’m listening to, with the motto: "there's always a stronger pain that drives out the weaker one" they say... oohhmmmmm. Anyway: straight from the teeth, this CD seems to me a crazy piece of nonsense, stuff for crazed kids with nothing in their heads but lots of repressed anger from pimply 13-year-olds and evil more like from a discount store than hard-rock, expressed then in an anachronistic way like a disused sideshow.
A genre that (perhaps) made sense long ago at the dawn of the genre, but now recycles clichés and numbers from the old Medrano Circus on the brink of extinction (does anyone still go to the circus?!). But who the hell still listens to these mummified 40-year-olds, I say? But who the hell is impressed by the hoarse and gloomy voice of this Till Lindemann who seems like a cross between "Mangiafuoco" by Collodi and Pippi Longstocking's pirate?!ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhh.

While I reflect to myself, I see a canine dive into the crimson red pool on the floor and that idiot Stronko who takes advantage of it to swallow that too: may it get stuck in that bastard pitbull’s throat!! "Relax" the tattooed wardrobe tells me "...two minutes and you’re golden!!" while nodding his head to the 4/4 of track no. 10 "Stein Und Stein" (a real abortion resulting from a wild coupling between Europe and a slow-motion Irish Celtic ballad) making the long locks of dirty dreadlocks swing back and forth, whipping me in the face. I can’t tell if the drill in my mouth or this musical drill in my ears hurts more... that’s why he DIDN’T USE the anesthetic, I think!
The album advances relentlessly and so arrives the final "soft-rock" limping (a perverse cross between the latest Litfiba and Julio Iglesias with the chorus singing "Amour amour" with a German accent... DOWNRIGHT SCARY!!!!!). I watch Agamemnon make the "wave" with the drill used as a lighter and sing "amour amour" in a frenzy of kitsch & trash when suddenly I shout: STOP! ENOUGH NOW, damn it!!

I get up, snatch the drill from the metalhead dentist's hands, and fling it still on from the window, wrapping it into the toupee of the postman on the ground floor. The butcher doesn't even have time to react before I hurl him by the collar into the wall, pinning him straight into the two buffalo horns hanging from behind a 1966 USA bison hunting trophy. Agameeeenchia makes a face as if to say "what the hell have you done?!" but I don’t even let him speak: I give him a Randy Orton punch with my right fist straight in the mouth and in one shot I extract molars, incisors, canines, and wisdom teeth... without machinery and all for free!!!
"Let’s go, jerk!" I say to Stronko all wagging, intent on finishing this feast laid out on a base of live meat in a sauce of blood spread on the floor. I go down the stairs with my shirt bloodied and my mouth torn and wrecked worse than a stunt double in a Romero film. Yet... sometimes crappy music can perfectly supplant anesthetic. And indeed, now walking home without listening to anything, this damn toothache is returning 10 times worse than before. And thinking about this, I give Stronko a kick for revenge on his balls who, apparently, is the only one who gained something from this whole story. What a bastard that one!!

In fact, I launch an appeal: if you know a "serious" and not overly expensive dentist, it would be greatly appreciated if you could signal it to me at http://thepunishersblog.splinder.com/ I assure a response in... a heartbeat!!

(X EDITOR: Could you make the headline larger and in bold?... if you want, put in italics some particular words that I have put in quotes and maybe in bold the COMMENTS REFERENCING to the record, like in serious reviews... see fit to liven it up a little: Thanks a million. Obviously, DELETE this technical little sentence in parentheses : )))))