TIPS ZUM SELBSTMORD

This album offers some excellent moody and manic psychedelic heavy rock for a listener, who is not driven away by the challenging start of the record. The sound texture of this music reminds slightly the tones of very first Uriah Heep albums, having a lesser keyboard presence and more stinging acid rock guitar in style of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Also the end result is not as accessible as the songs from the referred bands. Compositions are built from strong riffs and the improvisations are done within these frames, so there's no full free jamming found from the album. The melodic themes are also often ran through with a very neurotic piety, boosting the lunatic overall feeling of the album, focusing on aggressive, dark, fuzzed out and moody areas of mind. There are some more quiet acoustic movements also included, but mostly the music runs with a menacing rock drive. I don't understand the lyrics very well as they are sung in German, but they are quite political, and I later learned they are about the nuclear arms race. The singing is not maybe the strongest link in this music, but it has a quite broad scale, as there are some very low vocals, some from standard pitch, some are spoken, some high pitched "fjord vocals" like Heep's vocals were described by some witty critic, and sometimes these join together to build large voice harmonies. If you like to hear hippies to "kill a guitar" in a good style, you are into darker music like Black Widow, and are also fond of continental European 1960's/1970's psychedelic rock style, this classic record might please you certainly. There's lot of enthusiasm in the music, but also some funny moments where the intended rhythms are nearly reached, but not totally, so an ability to overlook some technical mistakes is needed also to appreciate this music. For the vinyl fans there's a LP reissue by Little Wing label released in 1990's in the markets, as the original's price might make you need some "Tips Zum Selbstmord" after the purchase.