TANZ DER GÖTTER

3.5 stars. FLAMING BESS formed in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1969 and it would be ten years before they were able to release their debut album that I'm reviewing today. This album doesn't seem to get a lot of love on the site here, and I get it. A fairly lightweight recording with sedate drums, intricate guitar, floating organ and dreamy synths. Very much a feel good album that is quite uplifting. And yes this has instrumental CAMEL written all over it. And I love my CAMEL. The only vocals are narration ranging from one to two minutes to start each of the five tracks. And in German.

This is such a pleasant sounding album, kind of like NOVALIS or ANYONE'S DAUGHTER. And sure, this could be considered a guilty pleasure, but I'm impressed with this recording. Essentially this is a trio of multi-instrumentalists plus there is quite a few guests here filling out the sound. The drums are probably the weakest link with them even using a drum machine on the closer, and sadly you can hardly tell the difference. It's interesting that the bass/guitarist instead of the drummer adds drums on that closer along with the drum machine. Strange, but as I said before the drums are sedate or pedestrian all the way. I like the clavinet though and we get some brief violin and sax.

3.5 stars seems perfect for this one, but I'm bumping that up.