Toxicological Whispering
Amon Duul II were an epic band back in the late 60s and early 70s and are widely credited with being on e of the forefathers of the phenomenon that became Krautrock. ‘Pyragony’ is a re-release from 1976, when arguably they had past their best point but a recent resurgence in popularity still sees tracks lifted from this record for inclusion in the set list.
Opening track ‘Flower of the Orient’ is great and sounds like classic Amon Duul II with it’s mellow feel with a predictably oriental vibe to it. The criticism at the time of release was aimed at the two new members Stefan Zauner and Klaus Ebert, who brought much more of a mainstream and poppy feel to proceedings. Listening to it over 30 years later you can see where they were coming from and it’s certainly not a patch on their classic early albums but it makes a strong start. The first few songs are not that far removed from the earlier material with ‘Crystal Hexagram’ in particular being a perfectly likeable slice of ambient psychedelica.
It’s on tracks like ‘Lost in Space’ where things go slightly awry, this is really light weight throwaway paisley pop that despite it’s spacey theme is well removed from what you’d expect of Amon Duul II. Things don’t get much better with ‘Sally the Seducer’, which again is very light and airy in feel and follows more of a traditional verse to chorus formula than the epic rambling compositions that were the bands trademark. It also features an incredibly cheesy sounding keyboard! Unfortunately the descent into silliness continues with ‘Telly Vision’, which despite some nice sections is pretty cringe worthy on all fronts and you start to wonder if the original members were even in the studio for this one.
At seven and a half minutes ‘The Only Thing’ is the longest track on the album and you’d hope from that that it would be a return to past glories but alas you would be mistaken. The verse is yet another sugar coated lazy ride through standardised structures and major chords, not what Amon Duul II were about at all! It does hint at moving into exploratory territory mid way through but just as you think it’s going to redeem itself it slips back into the main riff. There’s some decent guitar duelling towards the end but it’s not enough to paper over the cracks.
Closing track ‘Capuccino’ puts the final nail in the coffin with yet another ‘nice’ radio friendly, forgettable and frankly quite average song. This one will be going into the racks for the foreseeable future whilst I dig out ‘Tanz Der Lemminge’ and ‘Yeti’ to remind myself how Amon Duul II should sound.