JOIN INN

After the experiments with vocals on Schwingungen, Join Inn returns to the same structure as the debut, a wild rocking psychedelic improvisation on side A and an drawn out cosmic soup of fluid guitar and synth sounds on side B.

Göttsching forgot one thing when copying the formula from the debut and that was to add inspired lead guitars. Freak 'n' Roll doesn't measure up to Amboss. Schulze is back on the drums and he handles them very proficiently again. Enke's bass guitar is more prominent then it used to be and it's interesting to listen to just the drums and bass here, as Göttsching's really not into the groove here. His endless 'Instellar Overdrive' strumming comes off derivative and bland. Somehow nothing appears to be tuned very well neither, a punk thing to do for sure but it doesn't work here. Not for me at least.

The evocative ambience of Jenseits is a lot better. It's the known kind of cosmic soup created by sound effects and endlessly flowing guitar melodies, swelling in and out of focues. This track should be mandatory listening for every GYBE fan really. Schulze plays desolately beautiful waves of electronic organ sounds and Enke adds morose minor key bass lines halfway in.

Overall, Join Inn doesn't reach the quality of the previous albums for me. Jenseits is fantastic but Freak 'n' Roll doesn't measure up to the wild rage of the similar jam of the debut. 3.5 stars