ALL WILL BE CHANGED

This group started in the 60's as The City Preachers (a German-Irish folk band that included future Slapp Happy's Dagmar Krause), but by the turn of the decade, the remaining quartet had formed Frumpy, started playing their first gig in France (the KB Jean Jacques Kravetz is French) and in August recorded their debut album, which sold quite well (Frumpy is one of the better selling full-blown German prog bands of those years), partly due to their transparent chameleon artwork gatefold plastic cover. This artwork and the more stupendous one from their second album were worthy of the Vertigo label, but by the time of their third album and Phillips (the owner of Vertigo) switching them there , Frumpy's best moments were gone.

This guitar-less quartet is an example that it is possible to have a keyboard sound without sounding like ELP, and this is not only due to Inga Rumpf's instantly recognizable voice, but Kravetz long (but never boring) keyboard (mainly organs) workouts and Carsten Bohn's inventive drumming.

After the short opener Life Without Pain, the single, Rosalie (14 min+) is a very dramatic track full of great soloing and Rumpf's bluesy vocals. With Indian Rope Man, the album reaches a peak in tension, while Morning (the opener on the other side of the slice of wax) is more of a hard driving machine (the single's B-side). The Floating/Baroque track is plagued by lenghty and experimental solos (which have not really aged well, but are not completely devoid of charms, even the drum solo is good (IF you can consider one good ;-). The Cd releases holds two bonus tracks, which from memory sound fairly different and with a guitar, making you think that they date from the second album, once guitarist Rainer Bauman had joined them.

Certainly a product of its time, with that typical raw sound that only German bands elevated to a form of art, Frumpy's debut album is a full blown-prog album that deserves to be heard, but progheads be aware that it is not flawless.

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