OUT OF FOCUS

In my opinion, besides Embryo, Out Of Focus must have been the best and most original band that ever emerged from my home town. Those guys really carried this type of "Krautrock" spirit of musicians playing for their fun and not for any commercial interests. Mentioning the term "Krautrock" though belonging in some way into this particular scene (since they've been also quite drug-inspired obviously) the music they presented here exhibited some blend of psyche folk/blues-rock and jazzy hardrock jammin' not that far away from bands like Colosseum, Nucleus or Soft Machine. Slight comparisons might be drawn as well to country fellows Kraan and Embryo but this band actually had shown a quite unique and self-contained style. The jazz influence wasn't here yet as strong as it would be on their third album and comes most obvious in the great 13+ min track "Whispering". "It's Your Life", "Blue Sunday Morning" and "Fly Bird Fly" are more flute-dominated psyche folk numbers wheras the rest of the tracks reveal superb extended jammin' with awesome sax and organ play. There's not one filler on here and especially the instrumental sections are brilliant. If there are a few points to be substracted from the full score than it's due to the vocal performances by Moran Neumüller which aren't really that great but the instrumental parts are prevailing here anyway. Actually I'd rate both their second and their third album equally with 90 % on the MPV scale! (****1/2 really!)