RALF & FLORIAN

Ralf and Florian finds Kraftwerk expanding their use of electronics and synthesisers. but whilst there's a wealth of experimentation going on here I find it rather unsatisfying. The overall impression created by the album is of walking in on the band as they try to work out what to do with all these cool toys - so they try a bit of noise here, some odd vocals there, and generally fiddle about with concepts that other Krautrock bands had already explored far more thoroughly at this point in time. I suppose it is interesting to see the guys fumble their way towards the cool electronic sound which would rocket them to stardom, but on this album they have a long way to go before they get there.