Pell Mell- Marburg

I'm going to change things up a bit this week, with a German album that's far from Krautrock. Pell Mell was a band from the town of Marburg, Germany, and they titled their 1972 debut after their hometown. There were 4 more over the next decade, and then they disappeared into rarity, with only very limited availability for their albums. Members were Thomas Schmitt (vocals, violin, flute, Mellotron), Otto Pusch (piano, organ), Bruno Kniedmeijer (drums), Rudolf Schön (vocals, percussion, guitar), and Jörg Götzfried (bass).

The opening is called "The Clown and The Queen", with some guitar riffing and ARP keyboards getting aggressive right off the bat. Unfortunately, as soon as the vocalist comes in, he delivers a poor, forced performance. It's a shame, as the music is a pretty good fusion of ELP with blues rock guitar (and it works surprisingly.) The next track, "Moldau", actually samples Israel's national anthem for a few bars of flute music. Otherwise, it's a nice instrumental flute piece, nothing wrong there. "Friend" keeps things going, and it's really more of the beginning of this album. Bad vocal, great keyboards and guitar. There's a healthy mix of violin and flute too. Really, I have no need to write about the B side tracks "City Monster" and "Alone" as their more of the same.

Bleh. This album has many sources to draw upon, from blues to symphonic prog to classical to Israeli anthems. Sadly, they just don't work all that well. The album is well made, with a few cool passages, but lacks any reach out and grab you elements. Marburg meets the minimum, and is nothing more than that.

This one is alright, but remained obscure for a reason. Grade: C