Rammstein

In their 25th year, German electro-industrial steamrollers Rammstein remain der Goldstandard for New German Hardness, with their mix of industrial sternness, techno hedonism, and metal aggression. Their seventh album lands somewhere between Faith No More and Franz Ferdinand, taut grooves meshing with bludgeoning riffs and disturbing stories. Lead single "DEUTSCHLAND" is scabrous, politically volatile doom-disco laying out conflicted feelings about living in their homeland, even tweaking the verse of the national anthem used in the country's fascist past. The rest follows the chug and bombast of albums like 2001's Mutter and 2009's Liebe ist für alle da: "RADIO" is like a heavy metal Kraftwerk, "SEX" is snaky glam-sludge, and "PUPPE" is a creeper with a coming-undone performance from lead singer Till Lindemann.