VIOLENCE FOG / JERUSALEM

This is the reunion of two albums, one is from Violence Fog, the other from Jerusalem. Both bands represent the bombastic heavy facet of krautrock next to bands such as Pancake, Zarathustra, Spermull, Irmin's way (...) Violence Fog delivers absolutely kick ass, highly inspired powerful rockin' compositions. Musically their own musical style oscillates between standardised 70's hard rockin sessions and proggy melodic interludes. It features passionate groovy vocals, agressive epic guitar riffages and astonishingly catchy melodies. On the other side Jerusalem plays a strangey-frenetic heavy rock punctuated by solid guitar sequences, obsessional epic harmonies, cryptic lyrical passages. The proggy tendances (notably due to the unusual guitar solo breaks) remain discreet but always efficiently delivered and oftenly accompanied by a primal evil psychedelic twist. Nothing really challenging but warmly recommended for kraut-heads and those who are into vintage-heavy progressive rock.

''SWF-Sessions vol. 6'' was a CD, released in 2001 on Long Hair, covering the only recordings of two German bands from Baden-Baden, Violence Fog and Jerusalem, both formed in 1969 but sharing little in common apart from their homeregion.

Violence Fog were Wolfgang Hoefer on vocals/flute, Karl-Heinz Hoefer on guitar/flute/vocals, Enno Dernov on guitar, Hilmar Beine on bass and Herbert Brandmeier on drums.They had a decent cult fan base, playing in numerous shows and film premiers around the area.In April 1971 they approached the SWF Radio and recorded five tracks at Studio U1, which are presented here.They played a furious Psychedelic Rock with Kraut references, but also lots of British- and American-styled moments, featuring bluesy solos and lead runs, containing also a good dose of raw, fuzz guitar plays.Energetic and strongly psychedelic music with occasional harder moments, highlighted by the powerful dual guitar moves of Hoefer and Derno, while all vocals are written in English.Most of these pieces contain some loose flute soloing and endless guitar twists, while the Kraut inspirations are apparent during the jamming grooves with the dynamic drumming and the frenetic guitar rhythms.

Jerusalem on the other hand added some fair amount of Soft Rock in their nonetheless Kraut-influenced Psychedelic Rock.The formation included Matthias Stein on guitar/vocals, Richard Ress on bass (both played in an act called Intoxication), Guenther Rueffel on guitar, Wolfgang Hilgert also on bass and Bernd Lewandowski on drums.Their impressive double-guitar/double bass line-up draw the interest of local fans and more well-known German groups, they even toured with Frumpy at some point, reaching the grounds of Austria and Switzerland, before recording three tracks for SWF in June 1971.As with Violence Fog, they had a deep psychedelic content in their music, which was fairly more dramatic and atmospheric, featuring a good balance between electric fanfares, acoustic crescendos and intense, lyrical textures.They played in a more downtempo style with clean vocals and more structured ideas, but they had a good bunch of electric, Kraut-styled explosions with the dual guitars in evidence and some very schizophenic drumming by Bernd Lewandowski.They sounded much like any other Teutonic Heavy/Psych band of the time, but their dramatic turns were definitely of great interest, creating unique and extremely deep electric music.

They seemed that recording for SWF was something like a curse for both groups.Violence Fog disbanded a few weeks later for professional reasons with Karl-Heinz and Wolfgang Hoefer switching to Folk Music and Enno Dernov/Brandmeier joining Jud's Gallery.However Dernov would soon quit and join Brainstorm.Jerusalem's end was even more sad, it came just a few months after the SWF recordings, when Matthias Stein died in a motor cycle accident.His childhood friend Richard Ress never recovered from his loss and decided to dissolve the band.Only Bernd Lewandowski appears to have worked later as a (free-lance) musician.

Nice early Kraut-Psych document.Not very original, not extremely inspiring, but very energetic, rough and passionate material with moments of guitar majesty.Recommended.

3.5 stars. SWF was a German regional radio station from Baden-Baden who from 1970 to 1975 invited young and upcoming bands to play and be recorded in their studio, then broadcast the results to their audience. A great opportunity for young unsigned bands to play in a real studio, and to have their music recorded. These tapes were for a long time considered lost, but they have been recovered and remastered. There were six volumes that were released starting in 2000, and all on the Long Hair label. I have four of the first six volumes. JUD'S GALLERY being my favourite of those, but I also have the KOLLEKTIV and COUPLA PROG's sessions.

So it's kind of odd to have a cd with two different bands on it. Both add about a half hour of music. After the fact I see why they did this with JERUSALEM and VIOLENCE FOG being from the same area, and forming the same year, 1969. Both five piece bands but different setups, playing in that heavy Krautrock style. Neither band uses keyboards, but VIOLENCE FOG has two flautists, while JERUSALEM has two bass players. Both are guitar driven and have english vocals. JERUSALEM by the way opened for both FRUMPY and IHRE KINDER previous to these sessions.

VIOLENCE FOG were big ROLLING STONES fans, I don't mind the singer, but I'm not a fan. A raw sounding band and one of their songs here is a cover of a Tony Ashton song. Tony being from FAMILY. I do prefer JERUSALEM, they are the more mellow of the two, and have longer tracks. Plus the vocalist and guitarist both appeal to me more. "Volume 6" turned out to be better than I thought it would be. Neither band would last with JERUSALEM's lead guitarist being killed in a motorcycle accident shortly after these recordings, causing the band to fold. VIOLENCE FOG lasted only a month or so after the recordings because of musical differences within the group.Their main guitarist would then join BRAINSTORM playing on their "Second Smile" release.

This was actually pretty good, hence the half star added, but not a four star record in my world. The title of this album is "SWF-Sessions Volume 6" by VIOLENCE FOG/ JERUSALEM just to avoid any confusion. The other clarification is that while there were six albums released as "volumes" from SWF, there have been many more SWF Session albums usually named "SWF Session 1973" for example, the year the session took place is always part of the title. SWF did a lot of recording over those five years, thankfully.