RAMMSTEIN LICHTSPIELHAUS REPUBLIC/UNIVERSAL DVD WHEN PEOPLE think of minimalist Germanic electronica, they think ...

> LICHTSPIELHAUS REPUBLIC/UNIVERSAL DVD

WHEN PEOPLE think of minimalist Germanic electronica, they think about Kraftwerk or Can—lofty collectives who like their rhythms robotic like they like their beer cold. Yet when it comes to the hot house of iron-hammered industrialist, ritualistic Germanika, two acts are worth discussing: the primal Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft and its spiritual sons, Rammstein.

Led by ripped swimmer Till Lindemann's bark-crooned song-speak, Rammstein come off like D.A.F. on steroids. The ice-chilled crackle of its guitar crunch mixed with the tech-hot whorishness of its sequencers and marauding melodies makes their music constricted and muscle-bound.

That's fine, yah. But what do they look like? As witnessed on their new decade-of-hits DVD, Rammstein come off like the end result of the SNL "Sprockets" episode where Mike Myers' Dieter and lover Heike present Germany's Funniest Home Videos. I mean that without humor, which says something about Rammstein.

There's something stillborn but happily grim, horrifically pompous and sickeningly romantic about Rammstein's filmic gold. With Till Lindemann looking and sounding like a cross between Bryan Ferry and Anthony Kiedis, there's a sinister homoeroticism to 1995's "Du Riechst So Gut." Backed by everything from chrysanthemums and Great Danes to oiled-up muscles, Lindemann appears crisply and clearly, without Vaselined frippery.

Two years later, Lindemann, in "Seemann" (cue Beavis/Butt-head response) is still greasy and shirtless. Only now he appears with a pineapple atop his head, working an industrialized shipyard while women in fishnets and men in pelican masks run amok. By vid's end, he is tied to the ship's prow. How Querelle.

As years pass, things don't get happier for Till. He's on fire for the soundtrack to Lost Highway, crammed into a tight black suit and skinny tie as if he's the lost Sales son in Tin Machine, stuck at some dull Kubrickian Fidelio bash. By the time we get to the Leni Riefenstahl fantasy on their cover of Depeche Mode's "Stripped," muscular males and gals in various stages of undress and crotch-patching toss the old discus around while posing in statuesque Olympian fashion. It's obvious to have Lindemann pose as an Olympian. But that's not half as distracting as hearing him sing in English.

Rammstein has always been Lindemann's show. Shirtless or suited, he's an original, rakish frontman for their filmic excursions. That's why, by 2001's "Fever Frei!" it's disconcerting to see him leaping about at a hard-tech rave with his hair shorn down to a skinny kingfisher with air-brushed raccoon makeup. Without that windy bi-swing, he seems Samson-like powerless against the might of Rammstein's metal-machine musik.