TANNED LEATHER

Little information is available about this German six-piece band and their debut presented here which has never been released on CD is much sought after. They consisted of one lead singer, two harmony vocalists plus the usual rock outfit. In addition there's some guest appearance of Hans Jurgen Fritz from country fellows TRIUMVIRAT on piano. In some of the songs I can hear as well some violin and banjo which are not listed. As this line-up already suggests we get offered here some American folk-tinged material much in the vein of CSNY, at times with a strong rhythm & blues feeling like in "King of Misunderstood". Apart from being quite a nice listen if one likes such stuff the songs here can't offer much interesting even for the most average proghead. Overall I found this album musically quite boring I've to say though the lyrics are admittedly at times quite appealing and meaningful if they aren't too much christian-inspired like in the redundant "Jesus May Help You". Really nothing outstanding to be found on here and if at all only interesting for the general collector of obscure 70's rarities. Their second album went even deeper into the country pop/southern rock realm questioning the relevance of this band in Prog at all. 2 stars is the absolute maximum I can offer for this work in the context of this website.