Rammstein have unveiled another new single ahead of their forthcoming album, Zeit. The latest song is called “Zick Zack” and it was preceded by a clever marketing campaign.
On April 1st, Rammstein announced that they had invested in the “Zick Zack Beauty Clinic” in Berlin, which many fans thought to be an April Fools’ Day joke. While there’s no proof of the existence of the beauty clinic, fans around the world called a “Zick Zack” hotline to speak with a “team of experts.”
Now, it’s evident that the campaign was tied to the new single and its accompanying music video, which, according to a press release, “deal with what is nowadays often a compulsive tendency on the part of the individual towards self-optimization, sometimes through radical alteration of the visual appearance by use of the scalpel.”
The video (watch below) features the Rammstein performing the song after undergoing radical and disturbing plastic surgery, leaving them nearly unrecognizable. Unfortunately, singer Till Lindemann’s surgery was a total botch job, leaving him in a compromising position.
A unique physical release of the single is arriving on April 13th. The special edition will be packaged as part of a 32-page “Zick Zack Magazine,” containing a 2-track single CD (including a Boys Noize remix of the song), plus “stories, photos and interviews on the theme ‘Prettier, Bigger, Harder’ as well as a reader’s letter column called ‘The Dr Flake Botox Box,’ an XXL poster, six posters and 30 exclusive Rammstein stickers.” Separately, a 7-inch black vinyl version will also be available.
Fans in Berlin will be able to get their hands on the magazine edition of the single early, by visiting a pop-up store this Sunday (April 9th) at 10 a.m. local time at the Alexanderplatz public square.
Last month, Rammstein unveiled the title track from Zeit, which s set to arrive on April 29th — nearly three years after the release of the band’s 2019 untitled album.
Fans can also catch Rammstein on their upcoming tour. A European run will launch in May and run through early August. Then on August 21st, the German industrial titans will kick off their first-ever full-scale North American stadium tour. Both the Europe and North America outings were originally scheduled for 2020, but were twice postponed by the pandemic.
Pick up tickets to Rammstein’s upcoming concerts via Ticketmaster, and watch the video for “Zick Zack” below.