DANCE OF THE FLAMES

Guru Guru

Krautrock

3.75 | 87 ratings

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seventhsojourn
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator

This is a curious beast where good and bad coexist in almost equal measure.

On the plus side there are the serrated guitar licks and clunky cogwheel drum beats of 'Dagobert Duck's 100th Birthday' but the good work on this song is ruined by the musicians using these features as a launch pad for their crass clowning around. This really could have done with being an instrumental - let's just say they should maybe have practised their impersonations of Huey, Dewey and Louie some more.

Then there's 'The Day of Timestop', a track that's full of dynamic energy and technical skill but short on guile and substance. The anarchic jamming on this seems little more than a frenzied ramshackle with the guitarist playing like an acephalous chicken.

The whole aggressively masculine electric guitar thing finally gives way to some acoustic ramblings midway through the album although the first of these, 'Samba das Rosas', really seems out of place. It sounds as if it belongs to a Morecambe and Wise musical sketch although I reckon even the great Eric and Ern would've been cheesed off with this amount of the curdled stuff.

But just when it looks as if the album is heading for the rocks it comes good with the impressive 'Rallulli' providing some wonderful Eastern-influenced percussion. Mind you, even this track finishes in bizarre fashion with what sounds like a toilet being flushed. Strange sense of humour these guys had.

The only track that doesn't suffer from any of these kinds of shortcomings is 'God's Endless Love for Men'. I don't know what spiritual path these guys followed but this track is dark and oppressive, like sinister shadows, and the fell-sounding jangle of its guitar conjures images of Stoker's bug-eating maniac stalking flies in his asylum cell.

There's certainly some good work on this album but it's also a struggle at times and given its current standing I was expecting much more from it.

seventhsojourn | 3/5 | 2011-10-20

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