After an old-timey introduction promising dance music, a dapper-looking Rammstein launch into a heavy-metal march (complete with imagery of stormtroopers) in the video for Radio, a track off their upcoming, as-yet-untitled album.
The black-and-white clip, directed by longtime Rammstein collaborator Jrn Heitmann, shows imagery of women in World War II-era factory gear building ancient-looking transistor radios, another woman with a radio in a baby carriage (and breastfeeding it) and a boy spying on a woman making love to yet another radio. A nun even prays to one. Rammstein are dressed in tuxes and bowties like a 1940s big band, and frontman Till Lindemann wears makeup making him look a bit like Joel Grey in Cabaret. Through it all, the soldiers attempt to crack down on people enjoying the music until they start to feel moved by it themselves.
For as sinister and fascistic as it all looks, though, the German lyrics pretty much translate to Lindemann merely singing about how much he loves his radio. I let myself suck in the ether, he sings. My ears become eyes so I hear what I do not see. Ultimately, its a statement against censorship and totalitarianism leading to a surrealistic finale.
When it comes out on May 17th, the record will be the bands first since 2009s Liebe Ist Fr Alle Da. Olsen Involtini, who plays in the side project Emigrate with Rammstein guitarist Richard Kruspe, co-produced the LP with the band. The band previously released a video for the albums Deutschland.