Member:
Sputnik
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Sputnik)
Date:
1/16/2007
Format:
CD (Album)
Panzerballett is a quartet from Munich, Germany consisting of Jan Zehrfeld (guitar), Gregor Burger (tenor sax), Flo Schmidt (bass) and Max Bucher (drums). The line-up on their website and MySpace site list some other musicians, so their line-up may have changed a bit since March 2006 when their self-titled album was released.
The band's name and their inclusion of sax give clues to the album's sound. Basically, we have an upbeat, punchy all-instrumental funk/fusion approach with some occasional hints of metal; primarily in the guitar sound. Listeners familiar with Avant Garden or Akineton Retard will find some similarities in sound, though compositionally the bands are quite divergent.
Panzerballett's self-titled album has eight tracks, all in the 4:30 to 7:30 range. Most tracks have a similar sound, revolving around slinky riffing from Zehrfeld's guitar and fluid, jazzy soloing from Burger's sax. Bass and drums provide a solid, driving backdrop but rarely move into the spotlight (there is a brief drum feature in the seventh track, "Meschugge"). The band isn't shy about using overdubs to provide rhythm guitar accompaniment or harmonies during melody lines, and this helps give the music a bit more harmonic richness than it might have with just the two melodic voices.
Production is dry and clear, highlighting the precision of the playing. A bit of reverb is used on some sax solos, which softens the sound and gives the music in these parts a jazzier feel. For my tastes, the bass is a little too trebly and tends to get lost in the mix, but the overall sound of the record is tight, polished and professional.
In all likelihood, if you like the basic sound of the band and the basic compositional approach, you will like this album. As I noted previously, each song unfolds similarly - similar tempos, similar sounds, similar melodies, similar solos, similar endings - so the album is highly consistent, but nothing especially jumps out as particularly special or notable (the nice pinched harmonic guitar solo in the sixth track, "Abkrassen" being something of an exception to this).
In the future, I'd like to see the band explore some different moods and tempos, and perhaps make use of the new dual-guitar line-up to explore some different types of sounds and harmonic possibilities. But in all, this is a very enjoyable, listenable debut and is likely to please those who enjoy funky rock/fusion.
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