PARADIESWÄRTS DÜÜL

I was a little concerned that this might be one of those albums where they just improvised with a lot of silliness as everyone is high. Not so fast. No silliness, in fact quite a serious, trippy sound with plenty of guitar, flute and hand percussion. We do get some vocals and piano as well. This album was released in 1971 and AMON DUUL II lent a coulple of musicians to help out in John Weinzierl on guitar and Chris Thiele on bongos. The other guest is Hansi Fischer who plays flute, and he would go on to play for EMBRYO after this.

So while AMON DUUL II members help out here, the year before it was the other way around as AMON DUUL members Rainer Bauer and Ulrich Leopold helped out on that song "Sandoz In The Rain" from "Yeti". It's so nice when everyone gets along. I liked this record from the very first spin. It's melodic and trippy, all about taking you somewhere as opposed to offering up anything remotely complex. Simple, drugged-out vocals from Rainer just works so well for me on that side long opening track "Love Is Peace" which is my favourite of the three tracks. I like the added bass on "Snow Your Thurst And Sun Your Open Mouth" and John playing guitar on the closer is a nice touch.

I've made no bones about the fact I rarely mention bonus tracks. They are simply add ons that shouldn't be included in the rating in my opinion. Besides it's so rare to get actually good bonus tracks. So it's very cool to get two bonus songs as good as the three originals, it really does come across as a bonus here. Coincidently that AMON DUUL II debut "Phalus Dei" is an album I always think of when mentioneing bonus tracks because that three part "Freak Out Requiem" is pretty awesome.

A low 4 stars but nothing less for gem. Their only release with Ohr Records and the results show that they took this opportunity seriously.