MYTHOS

— First review of this album —

In this non significant album, Mythos changed radically their musical identity and style, neglecting their acid-bucolic folkish sound of their beginnings in favour of a very mechanical-electro orientated pop-ish aesthetism. This album confirms the musical turn previously taken in Quasar but emphasises accessible-efficient melodic textures. Just as many old krautrock legends (Ashra, Cluster, Amon Duul II...), Mythos abandoned the primitive-challenging free experimentations, surfing on more mainstream territories, localised somewhere between electro pop and sonic synthscapes. The particular acoustic tones of Mythos have completely gone with the exception of sporadically flute leads. Grand Prix is in the direct line of the clinical-minimal-electro pop of Krafwterk during their golden era. Consequently this album has no organic moods & atmospheres, delivering an aseptic, cold and mechanical, robotic-like ambient trip. The self title track is a reminiscence of Kraftwerk's Autobahn. The rest of the album is similar, always directed by electronic drums & beats, synth grooves and repetitive, easy, friendly melodic fragments. Jet Set is probably the best composition due to its horror-like and Goblin-esque ambience. This album is really disappointed and without creativity. It seems to be recorded by an other band. A poor, indulgent copy of Kraftwerk.

This is more laidback than the debut as flute and gentle guitar lead the way.The lyrics are very cosmic, which fits the music perfectly.Tough to choose between their first two records,both are excellent. Dedicated To Werner Braun is an outstanding song that is quite spacey for the first 2 minutes before a very ASHRA-like flavour takes over.His guitar playing here really reminds me of Gottsching. Message is very spacey with flute.It settles down 3 minutes in as flute and drums dominate the soundscape.It changes a minute later with some brief vocals then the tempo picks up.Vocals are back after 5 minutes and some nice guitar 6 minutes in. Expeditions is another outstanding track.It opens with acoustic guitar,drums,flute and bass in this mellow soundscape.The guitar sounds amazing 1 1/2 minutes in as vocals join in at 2 minutes.The flute is wonderful.Simply a gorgeous song.Tasteful electric guitar after 3 minutes. Mythalgia is a short flute led track with mellotron 1 1/2 minutes in.It blends into Dreamlab with the flute continuing to lead the way.Percussion then drums in this great sounding tune.Bass and synths come in as the tempo picks up.The melody stops after 3 minutes as it turns quite spacey,then an acoustic guitar melody arrives as spacey sounds continue.Flute is back after 7 minutes. Eternity is led by the flute and drums early before bass then vocals arrive 1 1/2 minutes in.Love the vocals on this one.The temp picks up after 3 minutes as synths and guitar join in.Flute is back leading the way 5 1/2 minutes in.The song stops 6 1/2 minutes in then mellotron waves roll in to end it. A must have for fans of krautrock and spacey music.

Many words come to mind when listening to this fantastic album, like pastoral,spacey,atmospheric,trippy,eastern,dreamy,cosmic,dark and for one song heavy.Again this was recommended to me by Tom Ozric who not only knows his krautrock,but is passionate about it too.Thanks Tom. "Mythoett" is a pastoral flute led song.Light drums and bass help out.The tempo picks up early.It calms back down 2 minutes in before the tempo picks back up again. "Oriental Journey" is very eastern sounding with percussion to open and guitar joining in quickly.Distant sounding vocals are joined by the sitar to round out the sound.It becomes spacey after 3 minutes.Flute and bass 4 1/2 minutes in.Vocals and sitar are back 7 minutes in. "Hero's Death" opens with spacey sounds that build.Guitar and bass take over with drums in tow.Processed vocals 2 1/2 minutes in as the song gets dark and heavy.Almost BLACK SABBATH-like! Amazing sound on this one.Love the psychedelic guitar 4 1/2 minutes in.Mellotron flows in a minute later.The tempo starts to pick back up a minute after that.More great guitar is followed by a calm and psychedelic guitar.Nice.Awesome tune. "Encyclopedia Terra Part 1" opens with the sounds of seagulls.Bass and drum sounds follow in an atmospheric and spacey soundscape.The sound builds after 3 minutes.Guitar before 4 minutes as it starts to get intense.The melody stops after 7 minutes as different experimental sounds come and go.It sounds like a battle in the air between fighter jets,like a war is going on before 9 minutes. "Encyclopedia Terra Part 2" opens with birds chirping as a bell is sounding over and over.The organ is solemn as drums then bass join in as the sound builds.Guitar 2 1/2 minutes sounds great.Incredible sound a minute later with some excellent drumming.Mellotron before 4 1/2 minutes as the song then changes and a story is told with spoken words.It's a story about a man who invents a machine that allows him to sleep in it indefinitely until the machine wakes him up.His reason for doing this is the hope of coming back to a world with no violence and war.After the machine wakes him up the first time(after a hundred years)all has changed except that men are still at war with one another.So he goes back to sleep and returns after a hundred years again.This goes on 32 more times until when he returns from sleep that final time all life on earth is ended.Man has destroyed himself and all life.He then realizes that only death can bring him to the place he is looking for.A cool and very well told story. A solid 4 stars and recommended to krautrock fans out there.

While mythos first record featured some short songs with some very nice flute added to two long epics called "Encyclopedia Terra", this album expand their music to a more cosmic dimension, and since this album has originally released by the Rolf Ulrich Kaiser "Kosmische Music" label, it is not surprising that their sound has been heavily influenced by the Cosmic Jokers / Ash Ra Tempel music...

I really like this album and I use to listen it more often than their first work.. Very atmopheric, we have here an very quite soft sound with an reverbered atmosphere and compositions that are very catchy, it attracts the listener's ear and the dreamy sound and emotion here is quite unique.

The first track "Dedicated to Werhner Von Braun" is a short track with echo guitar that clearly reminds us Manuel Gottsching works on the "Join Inn" album and is very reminiscient to Gunter Schickert echo guitar sound, I really like this experimental guitar piece.

"Message" covers every facets of this album, psychedelic experimentations, wahwah distorted guitar solo, strange vocals that can be harsh at first listen but in fact it doesn't bother since it really flows in with the music. "Mythalagia" and "Dreamlab" are my favourite tracks in here, very beautiful psychedelic sound evolving into a great flute dominated rocking instrumental..

This is a highly recommended classic and a typical record of what the krautrock scene gave us.

Here is my review of Mythos...''Mythoett''(3:02)is a mellow song,with flute,bass,and drum work,reminding me of a mellow rock JETHRO TULL.''Oriental Journey''(8'16)features congo's,flute,sitar,and spacey sounds.''Heroes Death''(9'47)is a psychadelic rock song,along the lines of late 60's PINK FLOYD,and mellows down some at about 5 minutes into the song.''Encyclopedia Terra Part 1(10'17)is another song that reminds of late 60's Pink Floyd,with space sounds.''Encyclopedia Terra Part 2''(7'24)has some spacey sounds during the first minute,then the music comes in for the next 3.5 minutes.The last 3 minutes of the song,the singer tells a story of some sort.As with ''Encyclopedia Terra 1'',this is also a bit mellow,but not too much.Out of 5 stars,I give this 3.7.If you are looking for a prog rock on a heavier side,you may be dissapointed.I cannot say that i dislike this,though.

This my first review to progarchives. I choose Mythos, because thier first album is one of the greatest krautrock lp ever. Everything is in it's right place. The atmospheric production, good vocals and cool numbers. First track sounds like Camel (the flute...), the next like polish ethno/folk band called Osjan (or Ossian). But the best are the last two tracks: Encyclopedia Terrae part1&2. A great musical journey with some fine lyrics at the end. A must for prog fans who choose atmosphere over symphonic madness:)

Mythos was a fairly minor Krautrock band that made a few decent albums. Definitely at the jammy, trippy spacerock end of the spectrum, they probably spent a lot of time listening to Floyd's "More" soundtrack while getting super high. Most of this is basically jamming, with Tullish flute soloing, reverby guitar, electronic bleeping and occasional mellotron. When the songs are structured, they aren't that impessive- holding a drony, cosmic mood was definitely this band's strong point. The vocals on the tracks "Expeditions" and "Eternity" are frankly laughably horrible, and I'm glad there aren't any more vocals on this record. The effect of all this is certainly psychedelic and entertaining, but this sort of thing was done way better on Dom's "Edge of Time" album. As Mythos' best album, this is an obligatory Kraut-fan purchase, but certainly not for anyone else.

This evening I was visited by a friend who had put lots of interesting, often rare LP's on CD for me. Here is one surprising 'heavy progressive rock' effort by German band Mythos. Their music on this album (six tracks, running time at about 34 minutes) is a blend of harder edged guitar work and spacey/electronic sounding keyboards featuring some fascinating music (like Flamenco Bay with a dreamy climate and pleasant vintage keyboards) with some hints from Focus (flute sound in Harry chanceless), Hawkwind (raw,propulsive guitar chords and spacey synthesizers) and Jane (fiery electric guitar and strings) but in general it sounds quite unique. For me this album is an entertaining progrock experience (except the boring song Ulysses B. Smart), no more or less, rated with 2,5 stars.

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The great valor of this recording remains in the suite Mythalgia- Dreamlab, (but even with exelents themes, as the prologue "dedicated ...") the album, a focus about the space trips, but strangely with a very earthling sound, that's could came from a deepest forest of the world, exploring the inerspace in this planet (sound) projected in the lyrics about cosmic encounters, is one of more interesting explanations about thats the musicians of Germany can do with the trio guitar-flute-percussion (with some adds of psyelectronics sounds). May be a research of a diary of an organic astralship.

As in their self title album, the strange, various music developed in Dreamlab retains the attention of the listener. It contains intricate guitars/ flute/ vintage keyboards based instrumentals occasionally harmonised by vocals. This band shows one more time that he belongs to the wake of krautrock market, bringing to the fore a vast quantity of weird experimental and electronic elements currently used to express their original space/rock. This is true krautrock music whose interest comes from the extraordinary attraction for constant changing moods, cosmic grooves and electronic gadgets. Not an imitation and a real proof of the German typical rock culture which emerged during the seventies. This album is maybe more accessible than the previous freaky adventure, providing more turbulent, rock soundscapes. Surely the link between their ethnic free psychedelic music and their later heavy rock period! Perfect!