The German industrial metal band Rammstein used video footage of a Ukrainian city for a teaser of its upcoming new album released on April 18.
The teaser video for the long play record titled “Rammstein,” which is due to be released on May 17, lasts only 20 seconds and is accompanied with what is likely to be a starting riff to one of its new songs. It was posted on the band’s official YouTube channel late on April 18.
Drone video footage shows an aerial view on a city square belted with a ring-road, with an image of a huge match pictured in the middle of it.
As of April 20, the video gained over 1 million views.
Ukrainian fans of the band quickly recognized the footage to be of Kakhovska Square in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, some 450 kilometers south of Kyiv.
The Google Maps image of Kakhovska Square in the city of Kherson
Moreover, a match identical to the one pictured in the square image in the video is also seen on the album’s cover.
The band offered no explanation regarding their choice.
The square is known in Kherson to bear the monument commonly called “The Three Bayonets” by local residents and devoted to the city’s defense against Nazi German forces during World War II.
In 2018, the monument’s soviet symbolism was removed including the Order of Victory, a high military decoration awarded by the Soviet Union to top military generals and marshals for commanding successful combat operations involving large troop formations. The reconstruction works were part of the decommunization policy in Ukraine aimed to abolish all communist regime symbolics exposed publicly.
A Google Maps image of the Three Bayonets Monuments in the city of Kherson
The upcoming Rammstein album of 11 tracks will be the band’s first studio record in 10 years, with the previous work titled “Liebe ist für alle da” (“Love is for everyone”) released as far back as 2009.
In late March, the scandalous band also released the album’s first single titled “Deutschland” (“Germany”). A 9-minute music video for the song, depicts various moments of German history from the Medieval Ages to modern times. It was heavily criticized in German media for demonstrating scenes of executions of Nazi concentration camp inmates acted out by the band’s musicians.
