| Track by Track Review
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Disc 1
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Asterix - Look Out
This rocker drives in punky and aggressive. It's not a real standout, but it is a good opener. |
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Lucifer's Friend - In The Time Of Job When Mammon Was A Yippie
In some ways this reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad. Lucifer's Friend always have rocked well with a classic hard-edged 70s sound, so this is just what you'd expect. The bass sound is really out front on this thing. The trip-out instrumental section is so cool. |
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New Lords - Fly Little Jeannie
The drums and keyboards are both busy on this track, and I mean that in a good way. This is a hard rocking number that has hints of things ranging from Steppenwolf to Vanilla Fudge. The instrumental break reinforces that Vanilla Fudge thing. This gets sped up to insane r.p.m.s at the end. |
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Message - Smile
Psychedelia and proto-prog merge on this screaming hot rocker. This is all class. |
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Silberbart - Chub Chub Cherry
This is another classy hard rocker. It has hints of early Black Sabbath and more in the mix. This is riff-driven and pretty crazed. |
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Cindy & Bert - Der Hund Von Baskerville
This feels so much like Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" in terms of the music arrangement. In fact, I'd say that the guitar part is a direct copy. Keyboards bring something different to the table, and the German lyrics and female vocals twist it around, but that main part of the song is unmistakable. The booklet seems to talk about that connection, but since I can't read German, I'm not sure what it says. |
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Toad - Stay!
Crazed hard rocking stuff with plenty of psychedelia and near metal is on the menu here. The instrumental section is pure hard-edged psychedelic rocking. |
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Wind - What Do We Do Now?
This has a real 1970s rock vibe at play. It's hard rocking for a good chunk of the track. It drops to mellow folk prog styled music based on flute and acoustic guitar later. In fact, the bulk of this song lands under progressive rock headings, and is instrumental. It's definitely on the mellower prog side with plenty of folk prog at its heart. |
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Birth Control - Pandemonium
The instrumental section on this track really gets into some full on prog territory. A lot of the rest is pretty standard hard rocking hints of things like Steppenwolf in the mix. |
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Hairy Chapter - You've Got To Follow This Masquerade
The guitar and bass opening on this has a real artsy, tentative vibe. The track works out from there to more mainstream rock jamming. |
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Light Of Darkness - Movin' Along
The vocals on this are unusual. This rocks pretty well. It's riff driven and pretty predictable, but it's also solid. |
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Eloy - Eloy
I really love the riffing at the back of this. The vocal line is classic, too. It drops to a percussion workout around the minute-and-a-half mark. This song lands more on the hard rock side than the proggy zone where a lot of Eloy lives. It's a great song, though. It's also one of the standouts here. |
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Megaton - Coo Cookie Chao
I dig the soulful sort of groove on this track. The guitar solo later is on fire. This has a sound that almost makes me think of the band War. |
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Weed - Sweet Morning Light
The bass work on this is amazing. The cut is a hard rocking, riff-driven beast with plenty of hard rock and psychedelia in the mix. |
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Disc 2
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The Scorpions - In Search Of The Peace Of Mind
I've always liked this early Scorpions song a lot. The opening guitar part is pure metal. It drops back to a vocal only section. Then it gets reinvented with picked guitar and they build outward gradually from there. The cut keeps evolving and growing with some pretty proggy and psychedelic vibes coming in as it does. |
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Frame - If
The hard rocking grooves of this work well. The instrumental break takes it toward a mix of Deep Purple and proto-prog. The closing jam takes it into some killer psychedelic zones. |
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Night Sun - Crazy Woman
Trippy keyboard sounds brings this in gradually. The track fires out into hard rocking jamming from there. This has both early Scorpions and psychedelia in the mix. It's driving and hard rocking. |
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Blackwater Park - Mental Block
Pretty straightforward hard rock, the organ elevates toward prog rock territory. |
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Twenty Sixty Six And Then - At My Home
Fast-paced and hard rocking, this is a powerhouse tune. It's part proto prog, part psychedelia and all cool. I love the keyboard dominated instrumental section on the tune. |
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Gift - You'll Never Be Accepted
There's an acapella section that opens this. Beyond there, the track moves to some driving rock music. This has a psychedelic edge and a lot of style. It's one of the tracks that brings some variety to this set. A percussive jam takes over later. That section goes on a bit long for my tastes, but it eventually gives way to some driving stuff that almost feels punky. |
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Janus - 1 Wanna Scream
Driving and hard-edged, this is almost metallic in nature. There is some killer guitar work on this and a real 1970s rock sound at its heart. |
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Tiger B. Smith - Tiger Rock
The riff that brings this in makes me think of AC/DC. |
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Kin Ping Men - Come On In
For some reason, this rocker calls to mind Trevor Rabin's sound for me. The vocals have more of a mainstream rock vibe. This has a glam band kind of feel to it in a lot of ways. |
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Puhdys - Vineta
The riffing on this leans toward heavy metal. This is another screamer. The main riff reminds me of Alice Cooper's "School's Out," but there are plenty of differences, too. It works out to some psychedelic freak-out stuff mid-track. They bring it back to the song proper later, but it turns out to some more trippy stuff at the end. |
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Curly Curve - Queen Of Spades
I dig the driving sound of this. It has some hints of NWOBHM along with space rock, prog and more. There is a soaring section later that definitely reflects both the prog and space rock angles. |
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Black Mass - Spread Your Wings
Pretty mainstream late 60s early 70s hard rock is on the menu here. There are definite leanings toward things like Cream and Led Zeppelin here. This turns toward some near metal zones on the closing jam. That part is so cool. |
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Electra - Bemühe Dich
Freaky keyboard sounds that call to mind Kraftwerk start things here. The track drives out some serious hard rocking guitar dominated zones from there. This is on fire. It reminds me quite a bit of Sweet. |
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Lady - On The Road
This is another that has some Sweet sound in the mix. The keyboard sound is cool. The vocal hooks are more mainstream, as is the whole arrangement than some of the other stuff here. This is a standout tune for me. |
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Dirk Steffens - Things And Thoughts
A screaming hot rocker, this works well. It has a bit of a Scorpions sound to it - at least from the Uli Roth era. This is another powerhouse. |
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