STRAIGHT TO THE KRANKENHAUS

The Secret Oyster progressed in massive steps from their first album to this one in a three year period. Straight To The Krankenhaus is a tautly constructed exploration of the jazz/rock genre and an album layered with a sweet toned guitar, tons of fluid and wild saxophone playing juxtaposed with the then up and coming synthesizer, string synth, sounds of the day which would draw comparisons with such acts as Nucleus, latter day Karl Jenkins led Soft Machine or even touches of Weather Report albeit with a more sharper guitar driven edge and a more direct formula in musical structure. The band merge their dual emphasis of dark progressive layers with laid back rhythms into an hypnotic groove more confident on Straight To The Krankenhaus than on their previous releases. The sound on the album is as accessible as anything released by many of the fusion acts who were breaking the mainstream barrier at the time during the seventies, it could be even argued that the Secret Oyster could even have had more to offer the genre had they reached a bigger audience, but unfortunately the band broke up after this release. Straight To The Krankenhaus now remains an obscure album as is much of, if not all, the Secret Oyster's work.