RIDING ON A TEAR

Zomby Woof came officially to life around 1973 in Reutlingen from the ashes of a no-named early-70's band, featuring guitarists Heinrich Winter and Udo Kreuss, bassist Frank Keinath and drummer Thomas Moritz.When Keinath left the band, Kreuss moved to bass and Ulrich Herter had joined as a second guitarist, while Matthias Zumbroich and Matthias Seelmann-Eggebert joined Zomby Woof on keyboards and organ respectively.After a long period with several lives Moritz and Seelmann-Eggebert quit in 1976 and ex-Puppenhaus' drummer Bea Maier joined the band.The following year they released their debut ''Riding on a tear'' on Jupiter Records, captured in a former cinema in Dachauer Strasse in Munich.

Zomby Woof played a refined Symphonic/Art Rock with lots of melodious passages, somewhat moving away from the typical spacious Teutonic sounds of the era or the Baroque approach of Novalis and Triumvirat and sounding a bit like CAMEL flavored by the interim, slow-tempo proportions of GROBSCHNITT, based on light Hammond organ parts, elaborate guitar moments, plenty of synth lines and managing to creating a laid-back, epic sound with complex arrangements and well-connected thematic variations.The material is quite often vocal-oriented, but even the shortest track contains a bunch of breaks and stylistic switches, they even recall GENTLE GIANT at the funky/psychedelic effort of ''Requiem (Part I)'' or the long ''Dora's drive''.Keyboard work is awesome, characterized by Mellotron, clavinet and electric piano injections and endless organ and acoustic piano interludes, I am bit surprised they had two guitarists, because the material is mostly keyboard-oriented with quirky grooves and moves and some blistering, grandiose orchestrations.The music is mostly dense with lots of interplays and influences even knocking the doors of Fusion.This certain approach has its exception on ''Mary walking through the woods'', this one sounds a lot like NOVALIS with Classical references on piano and symphonic keyboards all the way along with the dramatic, atmospheric singing of Ulrich Herter.

The allbum sold pretty well, around 5000 copies reached the hands of buyers, followed by a rare nowadays single.In 1979 Maier and Winter left to form Alarm, replaced by drummer Achim Czech and lead singer Harald Horvath.David Hanselmann also joined Zomby Wood prior to the recording of the second album ''No hero'' at the Galgenberg Studio in Schwabbach.This work eventually never saw the light, sounding more poppy and accesible.The band split up in 1980.

German quirky and polished Sympho Rock in the vein of Ramses and Shaa Khan.Melodic compositions with non-stop keyboard showering and occasional entries into complex exercises.Warmly recommended...3.5 stars.