Wallenstein - Blitzkrieg. 1972 Germany

I've often joked that winning a Spelling Bee competition in Germany must be one of the hardest things in the world to achieve. It seems half the words are 10 characters or more! So who knows why this album features two glaring blunders within the titles. Perhaps their American on board flunked out of English... Not as uncommon as one would initially think. In any case, with that out of the way...

'Lunetic' (perhaps they could have called it 'Loontic') is absolutely one of Krautrock's finest moments. Jurgen Dollase's frantic and nimble fingered chromatic scales on the electric harpsichord, are juxtaposed against Bill Barone's decidedly cosmic blues jamming - meanwhile the rhythm section is in hyper-drive mixing things up at a rapid and dizzying pace. And all of this is then blended through Dieter Dirk's patented studio trickery - with phasing galore. After 12 minutes of that brilliance, nothing else will register - and I often find myself at a loss for words for the remainder. But on a careful listen, one can hear the band operating on a more purely symphonic progressive level - eschewing the Krautrock tendencies of the opener. And each track features memorable breaks, similar to how Nektar would do on occasion. For me, Blitzkrieg is easily Wallenstein's finest moment, though I still highly recommend the next 3 albums as well.

Ownership: LP: 1972 Pilz. Gatefold. Online acquisition (2010).

CD: 2011 Belle Antique (Japan). Papersleeve edition.

My introduction to the album came from the Pop Import reissue (in 1990).

1990; 10/8/11; 9/3/17 (new entry)