Hailing from Pirmasens, the German capital of shoe manufacturing, ZOAHR offering us a time and style capsule of early 70´s Prog Rock, jittery Detroit Blues drenched in a bit of Garage Rock, crowned by a clear and weightless voice.
The opener "Endurance Race" is carried by a distorted leading bass. Not in the style of Lemmy's bass, but more like Chris Squire or Geddy Lee. The song lets you feel the tension of a long-distance race, the song never calms down and constantly pushes forward. A great opener that generates a lot of anticipation.
The following song "Zephy" breathes a heavy Californian swagger of the 70s; a bit of Doobie Brothers, a bit of Grandfunk Railroad and you as a listener have the feeling - hey, my muscle car has 300 hp but I only need 150 of them to cruise comfortably along a dusty highway.
"Garden of Grief" is more a blues song than the other forward pushing songs, actually not my kind of music.
"Prisma" is my favorite song because not only is the fantastic rhythm section at its best, but the two-part vocals are also a real highlight. And like the previous songs, this song also has this well-balanced mixture of drive, laid-back and casualness.
"Cornered" squints and steals a lot of late 70s protometal and AOR. Actually, this song doesn't fit in with the previous songs in terms of style and charisma. The band tries a little too hard to think outside their self-created box.
For the song "Erosive" I increased the tempo by 12 percent using Audacity and the band should do the same at the concert so that the brilliantly composed song can unfold its power. As it is, it comes across with the handbrake unnecessarily pulled.
"Idols and Statues" is clearly inspired by MC5 or Blue Cheer; this song takes 20 seconds too long to then rush forward with unbridled power.
I would have swapped the last two songs, "Wayward Blues" and "Red Tide". With its drive and power, "Red Tide" would give the opener "Endurance Race" a complete whole, as "Wayward Blues" as a blues without any major tension interrupts the circular flow of this album in my opinion. I am convinced that the band will choose the four harder and faster songs from this and their previous albums to go with one or two of their more interesting blues tracks for their concert setlist. It is not the album of the year, but with their previous albums it delivers a large number of interesting songs and great concerts.
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