HYLI Vol. XLIV - Spiritualized and Rammstein
Patrick sends Andy some British space-rock gospel idk what genre Spiritualized is stuff and Andy sends Patrick some German industrial metal
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Spiritualized - Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
Patrick: Perhaps you haven’t heard, but I’m a big ole dumb proud Britrock Stan over here. Do I have any British heritage or biological reason for this? No. I’m just a man over the age of 30 who loves Oasis. Whom among us cannot relate (Andy: I cannot)? I’ve talked about this before but, as a youth, when I wasn’t hooping or at football practice, I’d typically be found a) playing Final Fantasy X, b) playing guitar or c) firing up the ole Dial Up America Online to Wikipedia search some bands. Of course, I did this with Oasis at some point or another (probably like 20 times, conservatively, if I’m being honest).
The jump from Oasis straight to Spiritualized isn’t fully obvious. The connective tissue here is another Britpop band - The Verve. No, not the band that sings “The Freshman.” Stop confusing them. We’re talking about the band that sings “Bittersweet Symphony.” Before soundtracking 90s teen comedy/drama/horny movies, The Verve was a shoegaze band and, imo, they’re one of the best to ever do it. Because of that, and because of The Verve’s singer marrying Spiritualized’s singer’s ex-girlfriend (Andy: hm?), there’s a bit of a connection between the Obviously Shoegaze Spiritualized and the Kind Of Used to Be Shoegaze The Verve.
Man. I am so glad that I followed the Wiki personal lives section gossping that day, because holy shit is Spiritualized a perfect band. This album is their opus and one of the best single albums of the entire ‘90s. “Cop Shoot Cop?” Ripper. The opening title track? One of the best homages to another musician (Elvis) while not being a straight up cover that I can think of. “Come Together?” Makes me entirely forget about the Beatles song of the same name. The guitars are perfect on this - loud as fuck to the point where I thought I was going to lose my hearing when I saw this band live. I love this so much. J Spaceman forever. Hope You Like It.
Andy: This album is pretty fun but man, there is so much going on here that it gave me a tad bit of anxiety (Patrick: so it’s working). I once gave our fried Matt a song to listen to (I think it was from Admiral Angry?) and he said he couldn’t listen to it because it was making him anxious. It made me think a lot about how people’s brains are wired because while I get why it would make him anxious, it had the opposite effect on me. Maybe I’ve been overly anxious lately because of work and raising kids and moving houses and that is subconsciously being riled up with this album but I felt it.
“Broken Heart,” a song I don’t particularly enjoy, finally lets me breathe and center myself after whatever craziness was going on before. Really just a mesmerizing, spacy piece of music. He could (should?) have made that song 20 minutes and I’d be happy with it (Patrick: I cannot argue for any of these songs being longer). I’m sure a bunch of you are like “What are you on about? Don’t you listen to black metal to go to sleep?” Sure, yeah, but isn’t this a safe space? Can’t I explore my emotions without fear of ridicule (Patrick: it’s the internet, dude)?
With all of that said, I enjoyed the stress associated with the chaos. That is all I want out of any media I consume - to feel something. Any sort of physical reaction is a positive in my book. One of the reasons I constantly watch horror movies looking for some sort of small spook.
This album stressed me out in a way that I cannot fully comprehend. I’m sure it is more a symptom of my current life situation but I think back to how something like this gives me heart palpitations and Rammstein’s Mutter helps me find my center. Brains are weird. I’m sure if I listen to this again in a month I will digest it differently. I Enjoyed It.
Rammstein - Mutter
Andy: There was a zero percent chance we were making it through this newsletter without Rammstein showing up. It would be an insult to the genre if I didn’t bring it up. Arguably, (is it even though?) the biggest non-English metal band in the world (Patrick: you talk about Gojira so much I had to imagine it was them but I’ll take your word for it) (Andy: Gojira sings in English, you thumb.) Rammstein is one of my two remaining “must-see live” bands (now down to just Rammstein and Dragged Into Sunlight after seeing Rage Against The Machine finally). Not just because the songs slap but just take a minute and google what their live show looks like. Spoiler: it is a lot of fire. Like…who in their right mind says “nah I’ll pass” on a live show like that? Rumor is everyone on a Rammstein tour has to get pyro certified, that is metal as heck.
Man. Mutter. What a god damn great album. I’m gonna punch Patrick right in the gut the next time I see him after he types some dumb shit like “Whatever its okay it just isn’t for me.” What an idiot (Patrick: so you just aren’t even going to wait to see what I say huh) (Andy: no). Just peak industrial metal (Neue Deutsche Härte if we are putting on our genre nerd glasses) from the 2000s.
“Mein Herz Brennt” is a top 10 all-time song for your boy here. It is a perfect song. Great riff, great vocals, great orchestral flourishes. They did a piano version of it in 2012 that is also fantastic. My biggest flaw is thinking I can accurately sing all the words to “Mein Herz Brennt” perfectly (Patrick: men will literally sing along to Rammstein in perfect German instead of try going to therapy). I learned to could count to 10 in German from the “Sonne” intro. “Feuer Frei” is an all-timer hype song. So much so that the band was featured playing the song and literally spitting fire in the Vin Diesel classic film xXx. That makes it a certified double classic! Imagine!
I love this album. The 2004 album Reise, Reise is fantastic also. Really just a good snapshot of my teenage years. This album rips. I love it. I Really Hope You Like It.
Patrick: To give a peak behind the curtain, Andy will usually text me once during the weekend with a link to a song from the album he gave me for that week and, typically, I’ll ignore the text and that’s that until we post and then we’ll discuss the albums a little more Privately through text message. That was not the case this week. This little twerp was hitting me up basically on the hour asking for spoilers for my take on this album. I’m sitting here at the waiting room for my wife’s OBGYN to get pictures of our little egg baby and he’s firing off shit like “What did you think of Mutter I need to know I don’t have a life of my own.” Such a pest. (Andy: Normally I have an idea if Patrick will “like” or “not like” the album I recommend. Or, I’m not sure and I don’t really care. But re-listening to Mutter this week I was reminded how great these songs are and I was convinced Pat would like it. Then I was preemptively annoyed that he didn’t. I love being wrong.)
I liked it. I have never listened to Rammstein. Not a single song. To be entirely honest, I heard of the band first when I was like 14 and dealing with particularly annoying anti-semitism at my Alabama high school (some things don’t change!) and I saw a brief music video (maybe honestly the xXx performance) from this band and thought “hmm, big German guy yelling aggressively in German, perhaps I will wait 19 years to revisit this band.” I’m sure the folks in Rammstein are nice people. After all, it seems like there’s far more anti-semitism in this country than there is in Germany at the moment. But I think you can understand why a little Jewish boy in his teens might think Big Scary German Man is not for him.
I’m glad I’m coming to this with fresh ears. I’m especially glad I’m coming to this as a fairly large Nine Inch Nails fan, since a lot of this album sounds somewhat like Broken EP and The Downward Spiral in a different language. “Sonne” was definitely a ripper, I get why Andy kept bugging me about it. “Zwitter” almost seems to be the blueprint for stuff like Twitching Tongues. “Adios” really, really got me (hot take, they should have ended the album there). Some of the more, for lack of a better word, “epic” tracks here didn’t really get me. I definitely preferred the more industrial stuff and the stuff bordering on thrash (shocker) at times, but overall I really liked this. Probably not in the top 5 of the albums Andy has given me so far but definitely in the top 10. I Liked It.