Rowing longboats up fjords. Building large and important monuments. Opening major ceremonial occasions… then closing them – with a bang. Rammstein’s music is the perfect soundtrack for all or any of these. Not surprising then that, 21 years down the line, with the original line-up still intact, the six East Berliners stand at the very apex of the rock world, achieving album and DVD sales in the millions, and headlining festivals and larger venues around the world, selling out shows in record time (the band’s bill-topping appearance at New York’s Madison Square Garden saw the 20,000 seats snapped up in just 20 minutes!); these are peerless master showmen, with an approach to their art (and ‘art’ is the right word) that is challenging, grand in scale and designed to involve all of the primary senses – a dark and spectacular fairy-tale laced with controversy, don’t-try-this-at-home theatrics and the all-consuming aroma of freshly-pumped Benzin. Rammstein has always marched to its own beat, and generally that’s taken the band down a path different from the path taken by other artists and acts, seldom giving interviews and leaving the industry rule-book largely unthumbed: They sing in German, they body-swerve those elements typical of the rock ‘n’ metal world, preferring a more streamlined, high-end approach with its own internal logic, and they put on an incendiary live show the like of which has never been seen beneath the popular music banner… Rammstein is, well, Rammstein: Till Lindemann (vocals), Christoph Schneider (drums), Richard Z. Kruspe (guitar), Paul Landers (guitar), Oliver Riedel (bass), Flake Lorenz (keyboards). Make that R-R-Rammstein.