Front Line Assembly cover Rammstein’s ‘Deutschland’ ahead of tribute album
Fresh from two recently completed tour runs across the US, first as the headlining act and second alongside Ministry and Gary Numan, EBM legends Front Line Assembly release a brand new single today, a dark electronic reimagining of Rammstein’s groundbreaking “Deutschland” track.
“Deutschland” was released as the lead single from their untitled seventh studio album on 28 March 2019, it was their first new music since the song “Mein Land” in 2011. The song’s music video was directed by Specter Berlin and sparked controversy because of its dark, violent, and macabre style featuring various events from German history, including Roman times, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Middle Ages, witch hunting, the November Revolution, the Golden Twenties, Nazi book burnings, the Hindenburg disaster, the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, the Weimar Republic, the Red Army Faction, and the division of the country into West and East Germany. The most obviously shocking scene references the Holocaust and the Nazi period. Four members of the band, in the striped uniforms of camp inmates, wait at the gallows, about to be hanged. They wear the cloth emblems used to identify their ‘crimes’: a pink triangle for homosexual prisoners, a yellow star for Jewish prisoners, a red and yellow star for Jewish political prisoners.
It also featured science fiction scenes set in outer space, cannibalism in which people were eating Germania, the personification of Germany, and a bank robbery featuring lead singer Till Lindemann crossdressing as Ulrike Meinhof. The song also twice uses the line “Deutschland, Deutschland über allen” (“Germany, Germany above everyone”) as a reference to “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” (“Germany, Germany above everything”) from the Deutschlandlied.
Front Line Assembly’s cover serves as a standout track on the upcoming (August 25th.) cover compilation, “A Tribute to Rammstein”, featuring both old and new school industrial acts. Included in the 13-track strong release are renditions by Burton C Bell, Big Paul Ferguson & MGT, Front Line Assembly, Skold, Priest, Laibach, The 69 Eyes, Jah Wobble & Jon Klein, Julien-K, Stoneman, Lacrimas Profundere, Manntra, Original God and Leæther Strip.
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