TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS [AKA: TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS]

Thankfully I bought the one with the über cool locomotive sleeve and not the poncey English version. As if things couldn't get any better, they sing in Deutsche Schprechen!

The electronics sound surprisingly primitive, even for 1977, considering the sounds Jean Michel Jarre was using one year previously on his groundbreaking 'Oxygene'.

'Europa Endlos' has that 'motorik' beat that was initiated by 'Neu!' , but is punctuated by electronic percussion which prevent it becoming stale. The emotionless, almost android approach of Ralf Hütter help things enormously, as they are so unobtrusive and sexless.

The best track is the 2nd - 'Spiegelsaal' - a cold repetitive slab of echoey doom, reminiscent of Ultravox's 'Mr X' from 1980. This is probably Kraftwerk's darkest album which has a similar feel to early 80' 'Cure' and 'John Foxx'.

The title track emits more of that ice cold feeling that no-one at that time but Germans could produce. Repetitive percussion played in the style of train wheels rotating is pretty much what you get for the next 15 mins . Flangers are used liberally creating a strange whirly atmosphere.

The only problem with this album is that it sounds pre-historic in this day and age, particularly that Oberheim keyboard. But somehow it sounds timeless and is something of an antique. A piece of furniture that is treasured which you dare not touch in fear of defiling it.