GOMORRHA 1972 - I turned to see whose voice it was

Formed at the end of the 60’s, Gomorrha rised from the German progressive rock scene thanks to the help of the producer and sound engineer Conny Plank. The band original line up includes Helmut Pohl (drums) and Eberhard Krietsch (ogan, bass) with Ad Oschel and Ali Claudi at the guitars. They released their first album in 1970. The second recording “trauma” (1971) really marks a new step in the development of Gomorrha’s original song. They distinguish with a dense heavy psych rock experience punctuated by organ dominated sequences. It now includes lyrics in English and a lead singer in the name of Peter Otten. In 1972 they release what will be considered as their summit “I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was”; An adventurous album featuring catchy instrumental jams, krautrock’s original psych / spacey mood, pastoral flute parts and heavy guitar riffs. The concept of this release is focused on the apocalypse theme and the book of revelation. They suddenly split up in 1973 after the publication of two memorable documents of German independent rock.

Gomorrha have here their second album and also their last solo value ever produced (I think I saw a few articles about a collaboration with Rosen, but I'm really not sure if it's another album, if it's an album certifying the same Gomorrha....and so). And it is a fresh, consistent, full of artifices and moans outside real music and clusters, interesting by values and play instead of sense and desire, ready for classic prog, by the cheapest, easiest or actually most deep pronounced meanings. The style, between a kraut rock that evolves its rock, mainly, a psychedelism that likes nothing to do but to accentuate hard rock and fleshy gust of art rock, plus a hard rock and a fleshy art rock that likes nothing more than to accentuate some remarks of over-groon psychedelism and stone-rock, the style therefore has lots of influences, parallels, originality, free-direction, yet insists on music of progressive full, classic, distorted or dis-reached manner. Since this is, essentially, Gomorrha.
I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was, by its description and consumption, is the slowest at move and hardest at reach album by Gomorrha, but perhaps Trauma, the previous effort, wasn't such an outstanding kind of prog music and psyched-up conflictive rock, but only managed to have a pure and interesting arrangement, from the first note to the last, from those English-translated entire verses to the original ones the band played in their own language, from the epic of improvisation to the silliest hard pop-prog song they ever imagined. Though nothing to do with a debut's impression or so, Trauma's equivocal hard rock, psychedelic or prog charm both resisted an insistence of artistic means and explosions of taste, but did have the easiest forms of music and rapture, ever programmed by Gomorrha. To that kind of a fresh music, this album only comes old and unshaped in character and interpretation; otherwise, the fit of prog and rock is definitely stronger, the accent (already mentioned) combined with a steep, darkened or visionary influence, and the progressive moody character of Gomorrha finally unleashes upon where moments have the deepest balance of music, expression, accord (dis-accords also exist) and independence.
Whether of improvised material or totally blended signs of orchestrating power, rough exposure and deep vision inside notes and music, the band here does a creative, at best, moment of rock and of diverse language, interpreting a music with no suspense in being bombastic or exceeding its space, thus it is hardly a music that fancies a real provocative and vocational progressive attitude. What can be called Gomorrha's alternative is that they abound into their music deeper than imagined and, thus, comes with the most relinquished, powerful, abyssal, reluctant or rather "industrial" swarm of sound and summon of music they could ever do. Maybe as this album's best quality, everything has a great influence, a passionate play...and a deep sting; with only the touch and the very insubstantial moody biscuit of their rock-loom being left to only breeze rock and nice harmonies.
Pretentious and interesting, up in I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was, should be, first of all, the gullible hard improvisation that is Dance On A Vulcano (no, not a single relation to Genesis), only out of the more indifferent epic Trauma previous had; the impact of music, into this piece, wouldn't be enourmous, only the sense of artistic gallop and cluster makes the hard-rock a fantastic treat. Opening Of A Sealed has an enourmous silent and sorrow talent, the mood is depressing, the music is of full detail; maybe only the psychedelic smokes are something better moved away from. Dead Life sounds like a totally rhythm-rock, with nicks towards Deep Purple or Black Sabbath; leisure and licking, the piece doesn't stray from classic rock, hard punch or metal voice. I Turned To See Whose Voice it Was should finally prove another quintessential character of music and mood over-reaching what the style considers to old and the character of play is definitely narrow. High instrumental music, with a twist of groove. More inconsistent or unchallengeable, I Try To Change The World misses its biggest value, despite some great guitar improvisations and a first sign of classic prog magic, not under psychedelics and heavy melons, but under simple harmonies and thrash late-blues lyrics. Titish Child plays even weaker, by some charming, but never splendid works of riffs, bass touch and voice.
The end comes, this time, by explaining my own surprise, since I never thought, until now, that Gomorrha's second album is highly substantial and well composed, but rather was left with the impression of it being a borderline interesting listen or even as a slow-burn, compared the first album's mellow, but riffling style. When, in fact, the listen of this album is much more awarding. 3.5 stars, which get the boost. Gomorrha's impact on prog rock remains rather shallow, but not totally unapproachable.
Gomorrha was a german heavy psych band who released two albums in the early seventies (actually three since the debut was recorded with german lyrics and then re- recorded with english lyrics). Was the debut mainly sixties blues mixed with psychedelics, the second album was more adventurous. Not only were the tracks much longer, but they also had a more progressive nature. Maybe the music on this album is best described as Black Sabbath with organs.
The album opens with the long “Dance on a vulcano”, which starts very heavy but has a very quiet part in the middle with acoustic guitars and a pastoral organ sound. Singer Peter Otten sounds like your average hardrock vocalist, bluesy when it is good, shouting when it is not so good. Good opener though. Another good track is “I try to change this world”. It has a great psychedlic, jammy part with solos for both organ and guitar. I also like “Titish child”, a bluesy track that jumps around.

EAC extraction logfile from 15. February 2008, 16:16 for CD
Gomorrha / I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was
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