ZARATHUSTRA

The very best record on Metronome Records together with another German band Professor Wolfff.Both groups are into the Hard Rock Progressive direction.Ultra loud organ works,agressive guitar.Very good dark anguished krautrock music.Less polisched,less detailled than those Italian groups,but musically as good.

Average hard-rock generally highly regarded by die-hard collectors but to me it sounds uninspired and heavy (as in Weighty), but not much prog . If you read about metal , this is considered a landmark and IMO , they are right . Borderline for this site, though.

ZARATHUSTRA stole their name from German philosopher Frederich Nietzsche but their sound came from somewhere completely else. ZARATHUSTRA were 5 piece energetic heavy progressive rock band who took the URIAH HEEP- DEEP PURPLE organ led sounds and mixed in heavy guitar drum and bass interplay. With the aggressive vocals of Ernst Herzner, this album leaves little to question and lands as a straight forward heavy krautrock album with lots of expanded instrumentation and arrangements. Overall a fine album full of nice dark and deep organ grinds and emotive vocals...

Not to be confused with the black metal band also from Germany of the same name, ZARATHUSTRA was a short lived band from Hamburg, Germany that released one album in 1972. This album sounds like a very bad attempt at being Uriah Heep, early Scorpions or Deep Purple. Everything about this turns me off. The vocals ? bad. The guitar playing ? boring. The organ ? uninspired. The songwriting? Pathetic. Everything sounds just sloppy! I'm a very tolerant music lover. I can find interesting tidbits in most things I hear, however this album is just horrible! And in the year 1972 when it seems like inspiration and classics were being beamed down from the heavens above, Zarathustra put this out. They were wise and called it quits after this album. One of the worst albums i've ever heard. Even the dude on the bland cover looks like he's ready to put something more interesting on. For me this doesn't fly as heavy-pscyh, proto-metal, prog rock or anything really.

I really think why this album gets a bad rep is because it's total lack of originality. There is no doubt these guys were the German Uriah Heep. Zarathustra released their one and only album in 1972 on Metronome (subsidiaries of this label also included Brain and Ohr, amongst others). It's also occurred that Birth Control released their debut on the same label, and then they moved to a Metronome subsidiary, Ohr, before moving to CBS. I compare Zarathustra with Uriah Heep because the vocal similarities, not to mention similar fuzzed-organ work that's similar to Ken Hensley. The music is also similar to Atomic Rooster, Captain Beyond, Deep Purple and even Birth Control (that is, Operation and Hoodoo Man, as opposed to their psychedelic debut on Metronome, or their two mid '70s prog albums of Plastic People and Backdoor Possibilities). Personally I find this underrated, despite the obvious lack of originality, to me this is great stuff if you like this kind of music. Die-in-the-wool symph heads need not apply, as they won't find this appealing, but those who enjoy proto-metal with prog leaning, this is well-worth having.