THE BLIND WINDOWS SUITE

Among the most famous Austrian prog bands (along with Eela Craig),Kyrie Eleison came from Wien and started rehearsing in 1974 with Gerald Krampl on keys,Karl Novotny on drums and Felix Rausch on guitars.Along with Michael Schubert on vocals and bassist Norbert Morin they toured in Austria,supporting acts like Van Der Graaf Generator,Colosseum and Amon Duul.The ''Blind Windows Suite'',released in 1994 by Indigo Music,was actually some early raw recordings of the band in a rehearsal level.

The style of the band's early phase was somewhere between Hard Kraut Prog and Symphonic Rock.Containing mainly long tracks,''Blind Windows Suite'' is settled pretty much in an amateur level,both compositionally and productively.Hard rock guitar explosions are accompanied by an angry vocalist and the Classical-trained Gerald Krampl in a mix,which is not really that succesful.The production is really bad,the compositions are split between structured formats and long jamming,the drums sound like beating cooking pots and the singer sounds like the worst version of PETER HAMMILL.Especially the breaks,followed by the meaningless solos,are what spoils more this effort.But not everything is bad of course.The structures ideas of Kyrie Eleison are generally at a good level,smoother parts are supported by heavy keyboard- driven passages, Krampl shines on his organ,harsichord and moog synth and the strong interplays indicate a band capable of more.Unfortunately a bad production and an insufficient singer will hold the material down.

''Blind Windows Suite'' can be appreciated only as an early document of Kyrie Eleison and it is a good release from this point of view.Otherwise the album heads only to collectors of keyboard-dominated Kraut/Symphonic Prog,but be sure to try some samples first.