Wacholder ~ Germany

Crystal Palace (1978)

If one were to stumble upon Wacholder's debut LP for the first time, they may think they'd unearthed some unknown Krautrock classic. With tracks like 'Marokko' and 'Känäbis', could it be the continuation of Agitation Free's Malesch? Ehh... no. In fact it's side 1 that is the more interesting since it's all instrumental. The first three tracks are jazz fusion with a prog rock slant. Nothing too radical, and in fact, it's a bit pedestrian for the era. 'Time of Your Life' is the peak of the entire album, and it's not going to excite much I'm afraid. Side 2 is the where the vocals come in - in the usual out-of-tune English we expect from this time and place. Here Wacholder are going for an Anglo styled progressive rock sound, and overall not too bad, especially on the two fetching titles as mentioned in the prelude. 'Tolstefanz' (named for a district in Germany) however is best skipped over.

7/13/18 (review / new entry)