SOMMERABEND

A bit of a come-down after their great second album. This was their first album produced by Achim Reichel (of legendary Hamburg beat band the Rattles) and recorded in his then-new studio Rüssl Studios. The result is a very thin-sounding production that swamps the album, with Rahn's string-synthesizer pretty much drowning everything else out. A lot of the nuance that made their prior album so great is lost here as a result.

Karges is gone by this time, leaving Job as the only guitarist, so the interaction between the two of them that made that self-titled album so exciting is likewise missing here. He and Schünzel are now sharing the vocal duties. They essentially duet on "Wunderschätze", another song with a lyric based on a Hardenberg poem, and probably the high point of the album. Job's whisper-thin, tentative vocals don't add a lot to the piece, and Schünzel would probably have been better singing solo (strangely, after Fred Mühlböck joined on as frontman, Job continued to sing lead on the odd tune, while Schünzel-who reportedly hated singing-never sang lead again).

The album is balanced out by "Aufbruch", a jazzy instrumental based around Rahn's electric piano, and the 18 minute title suite, which goes through various moods. As previously stated, the poor quality of the production causes a lot of the texture to be lost, which is a bit of a shame.