Guru Guru: A One Time High

There’s a lot of recorded music out that there that’s heralded as some unique pillar to creativity. And simply because some journo figured out that line early on in the album’s press rounds, the sentiment is repeated over and over again. Of course, average albums later being claimed as masterpieces isn’t anything new, but what makes it all the more confusing is when an ensemble releases a stunning work and then a disc issued a bit later in its career is more frequently referred to with some sort of grand deference.

Guru Guru has done well by themselves, going so far as to reform randomly over time – most recently alongside members of Acid Mother’s Temple. But the group’s first album, released in 1970 and simply titled UFO should rightly be considered one of the high points of German psychedelia. The disc is generally well thought of, but for whatever reason, an album issued a few years on – the self titled one – seems to get as much adulation as anything else in the group’s catalog.

Where UFO was sprawling and drug centric, it succeeded in it’s tossed off charm. The compositions ability to move from one pummeling section to the next was the hallmark of a group made up of players that were in tune with what each other were up to. Though the disc was released during a time in Germanic rock stuffs that finds scholars and geeks referring to stuff as krautrock, this particular Guru Guru release has as much to do with American downer psychedelia as anything else.

With all of that as a backdrop, the next two albums that the band issued aren’t looked down upon, but its fifth album, that self titled effort, seems to get cited pretty frequently. Counting Konrad Plank (Orginisation, Kraftwerk, Devo) as the albums engineer shouldn’t have worked to the band’s disadvantage – it didn’t. Each of the five extended tracks is rendered in sublimely listenable tones. The only problem being that where earlier efforts from the band were tied to ‘60s psych, this particular album concerns itself with some pre-freak out music.

There’s a spate of covers included amidst that “Medley” on the second track. And while the approach to incorporating various disparate rock tropes is admirable, the result is little more than a hackey cover band styled take on the group’s favorite tracks.

Following that up is “Woman Drum” that at once recalls the Bo Diddley beat and presages the Cramps coming work – kinda. The percussion, of course is impeccable, but by this stage of the recording, it seems that nothing can save Guru Guru from itself.

There’s nothing overtly embarrassing over the duration of the disc, it’s just all pretty average rock workouts. And even when the guitar theatrics kick in, this late in the band’s catalog – even as the group would continue to record over the next forty years – anything found here can be located on earlier works. The self titled effort is surely going to please some folks, but UFO remains a sure thing.