MYTHOS

"Concrete City" marked the first time in four tries that the same band had recorded consecutive albums: a smart move by front-man and mainstay Stephan Kaske after the more confident "Strange Guys" in 1977. That album struck a fine balance between creativity and compromise, but this effort sounds tired, like a forced attempt to work through writer's block.

The heavier sound of the previous LP continued here, minus the same enthusiasm. Titles like "Concrete City" and "Neutron Bomb" tried to cop a cynical Post Punk attitude, but the new album failed at Hard Rock in the same way the band in earlier incarnations almost but never quite located the essence of Krautrock. And the attempts at HAWKWIND-like Space Rock (in the title track, and during the smarter instrumental breaks of "Neutron Bomb") were even less inspired, in part because of the somewhat constrained production and mix.

But let's cut the band a little retroactive slack. The big, bad 1980s were within sniffing distance at the time, and for a survivor of the counterculture barricades the aroma couldn't have been very pleasant. Nothing here is truly "Love Beach" bad (or, using another yardstick, "Tormato" awful). But the tepid results should have been a signal to Kaske that he missed an opportunity to quit while he was ahead.

Received opinion says the band, like so many others, lost a step when they simplified their style at the end of the decade. I would argue the opposite, at least for this effort: that once he was out from under the influence of Kosmische Rock guru R.U. Kaiser (on the lam in 1977 after the COSMIC JOKERS scandal), Kaske delivered his strongest album to date.

The sound was far more commercial, to be sure, but at the same time more focused, showing more muscle and punch in a single song than in both their previous albums combined. And because the band (in whatever formation) never had a firm grasp on the underlying ethos of Krautrock to begin with, the shift to a more transparent style didn't seem like such a retrograde sell-out.

That newfound energy is immediately apparent in the opening "Aeronaut", a relentless guitar-and-synth rifferama that I wish had continued for more than its five driving minutes. But the sudden ending makes for an effective transition to the much calmer title track, where you'll find a lingering echo of the band's Krautrock past, in the haunting combination of delicate flute and acoustic 12-string guitar. Here and elsewhere the power chords give way to brief moments of almost pastoral beauty, reminiscent of early GENESIS but in a more Germanic minor key.

Stephan Kaske wisely delegated lead-guitar duties to newcomer Sven Dohrow, who does his macho Arena-Rock thing all over songs like "Aeronaut" and "Powerslide", the latter sounding not unlike HAWKWIND demolishing a discotheque. Kaske's insecure vocals were still a weak link, but with the much stronger instrumental backdrop his singing wasn't such a conspicuous liability as before.

The end of the 1970s were in sight, but for the time being there was more than enough touches of ersatz-Prog Rock creativity to hold a fan's interest: in the pinpoint tempo changes of "Mysterious Scene"; the quasi-Celtic vibe of "Terra Incognita"; and the JETHRO TULL-like jamming of "Backstage Fumble" (gotta love that unexpected, Teutonic doo-wop vocal interlude too...) The album artwork is crummy, and the title itself is a little misleading: these guys weren't strange at all, although I suppose it sounded more attractive than "Derivative Guys". But at the end of the day this will probably be the one Mythos album I return to most.

The German progressive scene of the early seventies had it all; free experimentation and seemingly very little knowlegde about 'what music's supposed to be', in contrast with the English progressive scene that was way more exploratory and intellectual. The krautrock scene has a lot of interesting bands, but there's also a group of relatively untalented bands that was lifted by the zeitgeist and in my huble opinion Mythos is one of them.

Mythos plays spacerock with folk en heavy rock influences in a minimalistic three musicians setting. Full of reverbs and rythm and blues parts. The opening track is a rock interpretation of a classical peace with the flute as main instrument, 'Oriental Journey' has folk and space moments whereas 'Hero's Death' has heavy rock passages. On all tracks the vocals are false (though others would prefer the relatively artistic sounding 'atonal'), it hurts my musical brain. The second side is filled with minimalistic spacerock themes and some sounds of nature. During the ending section we get to hear a rather blunt science fiction story in spoken work, about a timetraveller who finds humanity is doomed in the long end.

Conclusion. This is an amateuristic but sometimes enjoyable spacerock record that I can only recommend to hardcore space- and krautcollectors and people who like obscure music for the sake of it (which is fine by the way). Two stars.

New here are Stephan Kaske's flutes that are genetically modified versions of IAN ANDERSON's theoretical marriage to THIJS VAN LEER. Robust at one end and breathily romantic at the other, they are surprisingly melodic and on best display in the brief "Mythalgia" and the more involved and wondrous title cut. Still, the absolute stunner is "Expeditions, with its acoustic guitar and flute buildup, surprisingly purposeful and earnestly blended vocals. and reveling lead guitar in a manner that puts even JANE to shame. Where have you been all my life?!

Lest I give the impression that MYTHOS is all copy and no original, I should add that I believe "Dreamlab" played its role in the coming waves of ambient music and even the German symphonic and space prog that endured to the end of the decade. From the MYTHOS laboratory, this experiment came closest to fulfilling the dreams of investigators and fans alike.

To an impressionable teenage boy (like me, when I first heard the album) the cover illustration of the two Aryan sex gods was probably more attractive than the music itself, which was never more than the tamest Space Rock. Dedicating a song to Wernher von Braun, the reconstructed Nazi-turned-NASA space cadet, was a convenient way for the band to fake its cosmic credentials, but the track actually contains the best music here, opening the album in certified ASH RA TEMPEL territory.

Too bad that model rocket ran out of fuel so quickly, descending to shallow fantasy wish- fulfillment in the two-part "Message" ("Listen to what we say! We are brothers, throw your weapons away!"), and the Hawk-windy "Expeditions". The latter track ends with some of the album's more effective guitar work, but the only real message in the former was an emphatic invalidation of Stephan Kaske's singing skills. It doesn't help that the mix was so poor: the drums are barely audible, and Kaske's flute tethers the music to earth in a way that might have worked better in a Jazz Rock context.

Side Two is an improvement, in part because the embarrassing lyrics were kept to a minimum. And veteran Krautrockers can safely assume the 'Harald' thanked in the album credits was the ubiquitous Harald Großkopf...that liquid cymbal sound effect heard in the song "Eternity" was borrowed from recent WALLENSTEIN albums, another band under R.U. Kaiser's controlling thumb.

With a little more determination Mythos could have rivaled Ash Ra in the German cosmic rock sweepstakes. Just because many other bands were doing the same thing better is no reason to completely dismiss them, but it's true: many other bands were doing the same thing better.

All of the tracks here are listenable in the main, inclusive of the disjointed almost atonal vocal sections smattering the largely wordless backdrop, but some dutiful editing would improve the overall sense of progress. The flutes of the opening cut and the sedate movements of "Oriental Journey" contrast with the aggression of "Hero's Death" and "Encyclopedia Terra", which too vacillate from tranquility to pure tedium. It's neither as hypnotic as it ought to be nor as imposing as it would like to be, and I don't feel "saved" by the Christian pessimism of the last few minutes either, although I admit that the narrative and background are entirely sumptuous.

There is only one way to go with this - as the mythological heroes of Ancient Greece, to the middle ground, not so low as to collide with the earth shackled, and not so high as to scorch one's wings, because neither comes close to happening at any point during this trip.

But they had a certain flat-footed charm not uncommon among second-division Krautrock bands. And, contrary to its trippy amateur cover art, their debut album opens with an unexpected classical flute piece, borrowed from Handel and reminiscent of JETHRO TULL's "Bourée". Hardly kosmische material, but like so many other musical and spiritual quests of that era the journey then turned eastward for inspiration, adding sitars, tabla-like percussion, and more than enough studio echo to hide the sometimes painfully insecure vocals.

The boilerplate space jamming of "Hero's Death" is clumsy but fun, especially when Stephan Kaske's voice begins cracking like a teenager on the brink of puberty. And then there's the two-part "Encyclopedia Terra", filling all of Side Two on the original vinyl with yet another Saucerful of the same Floydian Secrets that influenced so much of the Krautrock scene, but showing a somewhat tighter conceptual focus than other kindred freakouts.

The eighteen-minute long track is quite ambitious in a superficial sort of way, although the apocalyptic sound effects can be cheesy at times: synthesized air raid sirens and detonations, followed by an armistice of bird song and a lone, tolling bell. All of which leads to the song's miraculous aftermath: a haunting narration at the end of the world, related in world-weary Germanic English. These last few minutes of the album are maybe the highlight of the entire Mythos discography, revealing a stark pessimism far ahead of the trite Hair Peace, Bed Peace mentality of the time, and easily bumping my own rating of the album up a notch.

At their intermittent best Mythos was not unlike a de-clawed HAWKWIND, or maybe early PINK FLOYD without the architectural education (all the band members were high school dropouts). In other words, hardly an essential experience, but certainly worth another look to Krautrock completists.

The album kicks off with the delicate short Symphonic Rock instrumental ''Mythoett'', based on Kaske's excellent flute work and not being far from the sound of JETHRO TULL around the time.What follows is a great unique experience entitled ''Oriental journey'', a weird but very personal combination of Kraut and Ethnic music with sitar, haunting distorted vocals, trippy flutes, and cosmic synths.A great piece of music.''Hero's Death'' is another beautiful experience of Hard/Kraut-Rock with a poweful rhythm section, the cosmic atmosphere is again present, but what actually leads the track is the dynamic electric guitars of Kaske along with his flutes and mellotron.The entire flipside of the original LP is dedicated to the 17- min. two-part epic ''Encyclopedia Terrae''.After a slow start comes this high-class electric riffing and pounding rhythm section, which can blow anybody's mind with its masterful inspiration to lead through effects to the second part of the composition, where a soft instrumental section with dreamy organ and smooth guitar playing builds into a dramatic finale with electric solo and great mellotron, eventually closed by Kaske's narration about a man and his desperate, hopeless need of living in peace (just read these beautiful lyrics) with synths on the background.What a brilliant inspiration!

Mythos debut is actually what true Kraut-Rock is all about.Weird but inspiring, cosmic but delicate, hard but also smooth musicianship of the highest level.The best Kraut-Rock release ever?Possibly.A milestone in both Kraut- and Progressive Rock music, which comes extremely highly recommended...4.5 stars upgraded to the maximum rating.

Listen to 'Dreamlab' to discover how bad lyrics can translate into English. It's SO corny you wouldn't believe it. Pigeon English is used throughout where half the words are undefinable and if so, are laughable.

Not that I would denigrate Stephan Kaske's flute playing. That's what made Mythos what they were... A good, solid, lesser well known Kraut band who had a bunch of great ideas in their heads, but stupidly, in my opinion, decided to sing in English in an attempt at commercial glory.

It's not like anyone over here has even heard of them. I could ask 300 people - "who were 'Mythos" and guaranteed - I'd get blank stares all round. I don't care... I think they're great - just gonna sack that voice Mr Kaske!

This is not a masterpiece in any way shape or form, but is an album I'm happy to listen to. Moments of excellence interspersed with periods of embarrassment.

If you can withstand the Stephan Kaske throaty, whiny and cod English vocals you're going to love this album. Many critics of Mythos have often criticised the singing capacity of Herr Kaske, somewhat unfairly in my opinion. Sure, he's no Luciano Pavarotti, but who was back then?

They sounded so pumped full of illicit substances I'm sure they couldn't have cared less.

'Hero's Death' has some pretty gruesome and ugly raw electric guitar which thankfully peters out into a maelstrom of sounds effects and heavily treated instruments.

I took this cd to New Zealand (from Scotland) and played it walking up a mountain in Queensland and quite frankly, at the time it gave me the heebie-jeebies towards the end. I guess it was because I was so far from home.

What makes this album special are the tremendous and genuinely disturbing tracks 'Encyclopedia Terra' where 'Mythos ' have miraculously travelled hundreds of years into the future to discover that all life on earth has been made extinct due to a nuclear war in the distant past. Kaske's, lifeless zombie monologue makes me really believe in what he's saying!

I can't find it within myself to give this a lower rating than 4 stars, though it probably deserves it. I love this album for it's last 20 minutes in which it takes a major upswing and improves dramatically from the first half, sounding very similar to side three of Floyd's 'The Wall' in parts.