NEU!: NEU!
What a disappointment. I’d been wanting for a while to hear this group. They’re often mentioned as one of the stars of the ‘70s German “krautrock” style, and NEU! was an offshoot of one of those bands, Kraftwerk, which I like quite a bit. And another band at least loosely classified as krautrock, Tangerine Dream, made several albums of which I never seem to tire.
One doesn’t expect to agree with reviewers all the time, but I can’t think of an instance when there’s been as great a disparity between my opinion and that of a reviewer as there is between my view of this album and that expressed by Thom Jurek in this All Music Guide review. We’re already off to a bad start with the description in the first paragraph: “a sound that was literally made for cruising in an automobile.” I disagree, or rather would say that it applies only to the first track, the ten-minute “Hallogallo.” I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past twenty years or so listening to music while driving, and I concluded early on that I wanted music with a fairly consistent dynamic level—otherwise I was constantly missing quiet passages, turning up the volume, then getting painfully blasted by a sudden crescendo. (I quickly abandoned listening to any classical music later than Mozart for this reason.) NEU! is far too variable in dynamics to be enjoyable while driving. It’s consistent for a while, then drops off into barely audible miscellaneous sounds, then something like a jackhammer bursts out.
That aside, Jurek finds all kinds of things here to be rapturous about, but I just don’t get it. “Hallogallo” is vaguely similar to Kraftwerk, sort of a guitar-bass-drums version of some of Kraftwerk’s “motorik” synthesizer tunes (everybody who was around in the ‘70s has heard “Autobahn,” I guess). It’s not bad, but it’s not as enjoyable as Kraftwerk, and it’s the best thing on the album. Based on most of the rest, I’d have titled it Hippies at Play in the Studio, ca. 1972. Jurek describes “Sonderangebot” as a “tense ambient soundscape.” I’d call it boring noises—and I like ambient music. “Im Glück” is barely audible voices and watery sounds and bumps that could be someone rowing a boat, joined by drones and noodling wah-wah guitar. And so forth.
The fact that the sound quality is very thin, dry, and distant doesn’t help. All in all, NEU! gets ALT! fairly quickly. Here’s the eMusic link, if you’re interested. I see “Sonderangebot” is missing now. Just as well.
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