Amon Düül II: Phallus Dei

One thing about krautrock: so many of these bands were dark, hypnotic, experimental, epic—and also full of humor. Faust, Neu!, and Amon Düül II all regularly featured total goofball vocals or musical interludes. The unfortunate thing is that really Faust was the only band that could pull it off consistently. Neu! was successful about half the time, and Amon Düül II essentially ruined every single song in which they tried to inject anything resembling levity. That was my main complaint when I first heard them last year, picking up their second album, Yeti. That album had enough mindblowing moments—“Burning Sister,” “Eye Shaking King,” among others—that further investigation into the band’s discography felt necessary, despite the faux-operatic vocals sullying tracks like “Gulp a Sonata.” So a month or two back I picked up their 1969 debut (not counting the original Amon Düül material), Phallus Dei.

Unfortunately the record suffers from the same inconsistency as Yeti, only even more so.
When ADII stays dark—and instrumental—they often touch brilliance (like on opener “Kanaan”). Add vocals, though, and ADII quickly becomes a nearly unlistenable joke (like on track two, “Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren,” in which the vocalist alternates between feigning like a frightened old woman and a scarrrrrry vampire). The third track, “Luzifers Ghilom,” as well as the epic title track, come close to letting the genius instrumental jams transcend the occasional vocal intrusions.

Yeti, though not perfect, is a more satisfying album. Of the five songs on Phallus Dei, only the odd-numbered tracks are really worthwhile. (And what’s with the two bonus tracks that accompany the 2006 reissue of this album? They don’t even sound like they were recorded in the same decade, in the same country, or by the same band. Truly awful.) Someone out there clue me in: should I keep pursuing more ADII material? Tanz der Lemminge? Carnival in Babylon? Wolf City?

• Amon Düül II: Luzifers Ghilom

Comments

[Ramone666]

I´ve got one compilation (The UA Years ´69-´74) and that´s more than enough for me. I love Neu, Faust and especially Can, but Amon Duul disappointed me too, the odd track notwithstanding.

[scott pgwp]

If they could just do a straight instrumental record...

[Richard]

Tanz der Lemminge, yes, the others I can't comment on....

[A fan of German Progrock]

Being old enough to remember it all first time round, the view at the time was that Tanz der Lemminge was their finest album - or rather, 3 of the 4 sides were.

Of the other 2, I'd go for Wolf City. If you prefer shorter, tighter tracks then you might prefer this over Tanz. Carnival is OK, but it never excited me much.