Genre: rock
Rating: 3 stars ***
Tiitle: Germany
Company: Crystal
Catalog: 064 CRY 32 480
Year: 1977
Country/State: Germany
Grade (cover/record): VG / VG
Comments: German pressing
Available: 1
GEMM catalog ID: 4979
Price: $100.00
As a teenager I lived in Belgium and what was then West Germany. While most of my time was spent listing the AFN radio, I also listened to local European stations. Germany was one of the bands I stumbled across, though I didn't locate a copy of their album for some 25 years ...
Folks typically think Krautrock when talking about German rock. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of great German pop and rock bands and Germany may be one of the best of the mid-1970s practitioners. The only problem is that I don't know squat about these guys. The brief liner notes indicated they were from "a small place near Hanover, started their musical career in Berlin and now live in Heidelberg." Not a great deal of insight there ...
Produced by Black Horse Productions, 1977's "Germany" was recorded in London's Audio International Studios. Singer/multi-instrumentalist Rainer Dobe was apparently the creative front man as he was credited with co-writing nine of the album's ten tracks (I'm assuming that W. David Elliott either wrote or helped translate the lyrics into English). Musically material like 'Hello Night', 'Air and Earth' and 'No Lies' offered up a first rate set of pop that would have sounded good on AM radio. Lead singer Dobe's vocals were accented, but not to the point of being distracting and when framed with the band's up tempo commercial melodies, you seldom noticed. The set wasn't perfect, with 'Save a Dream' and a couple of the ballads being quite irritating. Still, well worth tracking down if you're into Hollies-styled pop-rock.
"Germany" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) Hello Night (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 3:23
2.) Raise Your Head (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 2:49
3.) Air and Earth (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 4:31
4.) Requiem (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 2:40
5.) The
Dancer (Rainder Dobe -
W. David Elliott) - 4:36
(side
2)
1.) No Lies (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 3:25
2.) I'm Coming Home (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) -3:26
3.) Taboos of Tomorrow (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 4:28
4.) Let Me Sleep Some More (Rainder Dobe - W. David Elliott) - 4:28
5.) Save a Dream (Hagan Galatis - W. David Elliott) - 2:43