Heavy Metal: Heavy Metal: The healing shock

In the mid-70s of the last millennium, a general phase of consolidation and sublimation began in hard rock, which can be clearly seen in the efforts of the genre’s founding fathers. Led Zeppelin released their pretentious double LP “Physical Graffiti” in 1975, which was calculatedly placed on a par with “Sgt. Pepper,” the Beatles album that finally established rock music as an art form. “Kashmir”, the most famous song on the album, puts it to the test – with its swaying desert ship meter, the cinematic strings and brass, the exotic Mellotron arabesques, it belies all those who still dismiss Led Zeppelin as just a heavy band want. This is no longer chart-topping merchandise, this is art.

Black Sabbath have already begun to demonstrate their progressiveness on “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”; On “Sabotage” (1975), their most sophisticated and expensive album, which took two months to produce, Tony Iommi gives in to his obsessive desire for studio tinkering, to the chagrin of Ozzy Osbourne, who just wants to keep rocking. You can hear that: “Supertzar” sounds more like the score to a sandal film thanks to the extensive use of the English Chamber Choir, and “Megalomania”, nomen est omen, grows into a tough ten-minute prog suite.

Deep Purple are also transforming. David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, the two new additions, clearly mix funk and soul into their signature sound on the album “Stormbringer”. Hero guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left the band at the beginning of 1975 and founded Rainbow to make his classic hard rock even more epic. Meanwhile, his former regular band, reinforced by the quick-witted Tommy Bolin, now also adds fusion jazz to the sound on the follow-up “Come Taste the Band” (1975).

But second-generation bands are also taking part in this sonic refinement project. Queen, Thin Lizzy and Boston paste several guitar tracks over and next to each other, arranging their riffs and leads almost like a string section. Queens Brian May is the king of polyphony. His opulent, calculatedly artificial guitar broadsides became his trademark and were already in full display on the third album “Sheer Heart Attack” from 1974.

And what’s going on in Germany? Krautrock has emancipated itself in terms of sound aesthetics, composition and playing technique, but those who take a harder course continue to look across the English Channel or across the pond. In this respect, the described artificial refinement of hard rock in the mid-70s finds its diverse expression in German productions. Lucifer’s Friends fusion albums “Banquet” and “Mind Exploding”, the heavy soul crossover on Dirk Steffens’ debut “The Seventh Step” would hardly have been conceivable without international role models. And East German productions such as Berluc’s heavy prog album “Journey to the Stars” have long taken part in this development.

At the same time, the harder blues rock that bands like Free introduced and that their successors, Bad Company, once again brought to a commercial level, remains virulent. The first albums by Fargo (“Wishing Well”, 1979), Bastard (“Back To The Nature”, 1979) and Rated However, from the second half of the 70s onwards, this traditionalist, blues-based reduction program gained advocates who interpreted it even more convincingly and ultimately more influentially.

AC/DC sound as if they want to start all over again and reinvent rock ‘n’ roll, and you’ve actually never heard it before in this unconditional and radical way. They’re a wholesome shock, an antidote to the over-refinement of the genre, playing simple blues and boogie but with the relentless heaviness and lavish energy of punk.

For a while you think you can denigrate them as punks, but of course that’s nonsense. AC/DC do not feel committed to a political agenda, but rather to a consistently aesthetic one. They master their instruments and play so purely and simply because they want to, not because they couldn’t do anything else. And their riffs are so suggestive that not only people with overactive glands caused by socialization constantly take out their air guitars to do the same, but also real wooden guitarists take measurements from them. Bands like Bullet, Breslau, the Swiss Krokus and Killer, they all learned from the Australian pig rockers.

It is then Accept who further develops a different concept and thus gives German Metal significant impetus. The tough studs-and-leather stitch of Judas Priest. The English are initially involved in the domestication of hard rock, with their two-part melodic solos and the beautiful-sounding, not entirely unintricate compositions, but they are looking for a way out and find it not in simplification, but in escalation. Rob Halford’s vocals become more extreme, more strident, they pick up the tempo and increase the impulse density.

It all starts with “Let Us Prey/Call For The Priest” from the ’77 album “Sin After Sin”, a song that already defines the outlines of the modern metal format, not least because of its double bass blast. And by the time of the final number, “Dissident Aggressor,” which was decently tame for the time, everyone really knows where the journey is headed.

On the following two albums from 1978, “Stained Class” and “Killing Machine”, they are a complete metal band in full leather gear. Not only the sound, but also her outfit has a significant influence on the genre. When the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was proclaimed the next big thing the following year and Raven, Samson, Praying Mantis and, last but not least, Saxon, Motörhead and Iron Maiden celebrated their first successes and in turn exerted an influence on the German scene, they were able to join in some rightly give them a pat on the back as a pioneer of the movement.

Accept analyzed Judas Priest in detail, and not just on their European tour together in 1981. Already on the second, somewhat vague album “I’m A Rebel” you can see an echo of the dream team, especially in the attack-intensive riffing and the twin leads K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton. On their ’81 breakthrough album “Breaker,” however, they integrate the influences and shape them into something unique.

Accept are one of the pioneers in Germany, at least in the fully professional sector. Bands like Sin City (“Call Me A Rebel”, 7-Inch) and Railway (“Just Imagination”, EP) made their first attempts in the studio in the same year and still sounded a bit shaky. The Hamburg-based Rampage have certainly come a long way, but their debut »Victims Of Rock«, also from 1981, suffers a little from independent production. No matter, you can call it all heavy metal. However, it will take another two years until the metal underground consolidates itself and builds a somewhat functional infrastructure in which young German bands can professionalize themselves.

In 1983 the critical mass was reached and the scene exploded. More and more young headbangers are daring to go public with their music. Clubs and organizers provide more performance opportunities, indie labels offer bands a low-threshold opportunity to put an album on the market, and fanzines discursively clarify internal self-image. From now on the subculture is large enough to perpetuate itself. Sinner, Running Wild, Steeler, Warlock and Rage are among the bands that have, so to speak, developed from the milieu; They are initially part of the youth movement and only later become rock stars.

The German metal underground formed a little later than the English one, but at least the bands immediately made up for the delay in development by jumping into the next stage of heavy metal development and starting straight away with speed or thrash metal. Kreator, Destruction, Helloween, Sodom, Living Death or Holy Moses may not be technically up to date, but at least stylistically they are absolutely up to date. It is due to this seven-mile step in the history of the genre that the world still thinks of German Metal, if you exclude exceptional phenomena like Scorpions or Accept, primarily of Ruhrpott Thrash and Hamburg Power Metal.

In April, Frank Schäfer released the compilation »Heavy Kraut!« on two CDs on Bear Family. How hard rock came to Germany – Part 2: 1977–1983«.