GIFT

The birth of Germany's progressive Krautrock scene took many roads with some bands focusing on the farthest out psychedelic trips possible, others tackling the technicalities of jazz-fusion, some more engaged in catchy crossover pop hooks while others merged the heavy psych 60s with the hard rock 70s. The Augsburg based GIFT was one of those bands that took the last option and crafted an interesting take on the heavier aspects of the earliest sounds of what would be called heavy metal. GIFT is actually the German word for "poison" and what you get with the band's first of two albums that emerged in the early 1970s is a venomous sting of infectious early heavy metal that cranked up the speed, volume and prog complexities of the heavy psych sounds that flooded the latter part of the 60s.

This band was obviously inspired by Amon Duul II's classic debut album "Phallus Dei" because the then school band formed in the same year of 1969 and took on Phallus Dei as its band name. After a few years of practice and the recruitment of new members the lineup featured on the band's eponymous debut was Uwe Patzke (bass, vocals), Helmut Treichel (vocals), Rainer Baur (guitar) and Hermann Lanze (drums, percussion) after being discovered by Munich producer Otto Hartmann who signed the band to the Telefunken label. Considered one of the more adventurous heavy Kraut bands of the German scene, GIFT wasn't exactly the most popular on the scene but gained a loyal cult following for its dedication to dexterous compositional flow that adopted the excesses of progressive rock without sacrificing the heft of a bantering display of guitar, bass and drums. It's also notable that guitarist Nick Woodland was listed on the credits but actually quit the band before recording began.

GIFT's debut is an excellent display of no nonsense hard rock with a brilliant juxtaposition of cleverly crafted compositions that feature strong melodic hard rock hooks with heavy guitar riffs and an excellent rhythm section that features hairpin turn time signature changes and unexpected twists and turns in the musical flow without sacrificing the underpinning of what makes a hard rock song work so well. The Krautrock scene was filled with heavier bands but not all of them could pull it off but GIFT did so with seeming ease with a particularly strong emphasis on the drumming and percussive accoutrements that give the album that extra special something. Add to that the strong confident vocal ability of Helmut Treichel and it's easy to declare GIFT's debut release as one of the most competent heavy psych releases of the early 70s.

Perhaps not quite as heavy as contemporaries such as Lucifer's Friend, GIFT certainly took the established heavy psych sounds of the late 60s to their limits before the scene moved on to the hard rock and heavy metal that would soon become the more popular style of the 1970s. While compared to the fellow German band Hairy Chapter, GIFT was similar to many other bands such as Captain Beyond and Twenty Sixty Six and Then but due to the talented members on board managed to stand out as an original all its own without deviating significantly from the established heavy psych sounds of the era. This one doesn't seem to get as much love as the more psychedelic Kraut bands of the era and gets lost behind the harder bands from England and the USA but for my tastes GIFT successfully cranked out a wild ruckus of an album for their debut. The band would change its sound by adding keyboard sounds for its sophomore album "Blue Apple" but for this first offering GIFT was a powerful beast of heavy guitar driven rock music.

4.5 rounded down