TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS [AKA: TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS]

"Und jetzt, meinen Damen und Herren, von Paris nach Istambul, Trans Europ Express" ! I guess this album means a lot to me, having crossed Europe on the Orient Express in 1966 with my mom, the memories remaining vivid. To dismiss these crafty teutonics as simplistic synth-pop is a gross injustice, as they created music in the mid-70s that frankly was already the sound of the 22nd century (what sounds more futuristic, this 1977 masterpiece or the pseudo drivel that parades as music today?) . Everything here is "Perfekt": Modern/Retro artwork, all the tracks are stunners, the 4 musicians excel at weaving this organized and mechanical splendor. The title track "T.E.E" is majestically propellant, mimicking the beat of the train and anyone who has taken one on any kind of lengthy voyage will smile at the precision (so typically German) of the cadence, as the iron wheels "klang" over the iron rails in a never ending metronome beat. "Metal on Metal" is the caboose that never lets go and an "über hochlicht" (super highlight) that remains a universal classic. Just like with the previous and world famous "Autobahn", the listener becomes a traveler on a railroad journey, heavily ensconced in the heady atmospherics that characterize the Kraftwerkian credo. "The Hall of Mirrors" is drenched in a disturbing robotic melancholia, a bubbling dirge of unreflective beauty, egoism laced with scorn and apathy. "Showroom Dummies" is a self deprecating critique of the material age, complete with inanely gloomy lyrics, an astute combination of technology and rebellion that took electronic rock to an entirely other level that Tangerine Dream or the other Cosmic Jokers. Kraftwerk was never about space, the cosmos or Start Trek but rather brutally mocking the regimented coldness of modern society where emotions are replaced with buttons and dials. Which is why they remain vital and a huge influence on so many future styles. Just when the locomotive arrives at the ultra doom station, the mood is marshaled into a more pseudo classical composition, the lushly romantic "Franz Schubert", where the theme bears a more symphonic veneer while remaining drenched in sequence-heavy rhythms. The short disc ends on an endless "Endless Endless". Not their best (Man Machine takes that honor) but deserving of four diesels .