EMERGENCY

EMERGENCY was a multi-national band that was formed in Munich, German in 1970 and was sort of Germany's answer to brass rock in the style of Chicago meets Blood, Sweat & Tears. Founded by saxophonist Hanus Berka who left Prague for Germany in the 1960s and after a side trip to Las Vegas ended up in Munich. While the band would break up and reformed with a completely different lineup before the second album "Entrance," the lineup for this 1971 self-titled debut was Udo Lindenberg (drums), Barrie Newby (guitar), Jiro Matousek (keyboards), Otto Bezloja (bass), Dusko Goykovic (trumpet) and Milo? Vokurka aka Reddy (vocals, percussion) - four Czechoslovakians, one German and an Englishman.

Berka himself had just come from the Prague garage band Matadors before forming EMERGENCY whereas Lindenburg had already gotten his feet wet in the world of jazz-rock in his band free orbit which released one album the year prior. Vocalist Reddy started out with a bang as well having been casted for Germany's original casting of Hair. Dusko Goykovich who was born in the Bosnian part of the former Yugoslavia was the most seasoned having started his career a decade prior. EMERGENCY in total cranked out four albums in the early 1970s. This debut found little commercial success hence the breakup shortly thereafter its release.

This album sounds something right out of the Blood, Sweat & Tears playbook with heavy brass-rich tracks with a funky, bluesy guitar accompaniment. This is true right down to Reddy's grizzled vocals which appear on every track and sung in English. In fact this band doesn't sound German or European at all. They were clearly trying to emulate American bands such as Chicago and other more commercial sounds. Despite the jazz-fusion tag EMERGENCY wasn't particularly progressive but rather focused on catchy melodic constructs with simple blues oriented guitar riffs upon which the trombone and saxophone parts could slink around. The keyboards do give a bit of 60s psychedelic rock heft to it.

Overall this album isn't anything to get overly excited about. It's competent and a pleasant listening experience but in the end a bit too generic to be anything other than an artifact from the era that will most likely remain in the obscurity bins for time immemorial. There is a nice cover of "Gimme Some Lovin" by the Spencer Davis Group. It's about the only time you will hear guitar solos and hefty jams. If you can't get enough funky blues based rock in the vein of Traffic with the added brass rock sensibilities of Blood, Sweat & Tears then EMERGENCY is exactly what you've been looking for but considering there were dozens of such similar bands it's more likely than not you've already scratched that itch as there were more competent bands at the same time.