Following in the hoofsteps of its crazed sophomore album “Pre-Emptive False Rapture” which hoisted them into the greater world stage, CHROME HOOF followed its P-Funk infused modern mix of Parliament / Funkadelic meets electronica, jazz, mutant disco and progressive pop with its third album installment CRUSH DEPTH which continued their experimental chamber orchestra excesses presumably while wearing their famous aluminum foil regalia! Following three years after its predecessor, the band returned with a nine member lineup only this time invited a whopping seventeen instrumentalists and vocalists to the HOOFian party pad!

More diverse and less disco-y then “Pre-Emptive,” CRUSH DEPTH comes across as a mutant experiment gone wrong where the B-52s meet George Clinton at a chamber rock’s cameo with an avant-metal band! Yep, CHROME HOOF may have morphed its focus but CRUSH DEPTH remains in the realms of alien space orchestra turf and al the better for it. In many ways the 13 tracks on CRUSH DEPTH that will swallow up a precious hour’s worth of your life force is more streamlined and noticeably less reliant on the metal guitar heft and excessive brutal prog bombast of “Pre-Emptive.” Likewise there’s a bit more of a jazzy flair with some moments of pure fusion finding its way into the mix.

Where the metal, prog and punk have been exorcised like demons from a serial killing psychopath, the band brings some serious synth funk to the forefront with a militant zeuhl-ish continuity interpolated into the avant-prog weirdness and post-rock cyclical processions. Less energetic and bombastic and more chilled with a greater ambient approach that nurtures psychedelic atmospheric constructs, CRUSH DEPTH. And living up to their name as chamber orchestra (a claim that is hard to swallow most of the time), this album even features true chamber rock splendor in the form of tracks like “Witch’s Instruments and Furnaces” which actually serves as one of the highlights with its herky jerky unorthodox rhythmic drive and trippy neo-psychedelic atmospheric weirdness. Even the vocals are less frantic and more based on weird. However none that prevents some heavy guitar thumping to burst in also making this one of the heavier tracks on board.

CHROME HOOF is really a unique act and hard to believe it was formed by bassist Leo Smee of the stoner doom metal band Cathedral along with his brother / drummer Milo Smee. This band crafts a unique mix of crafty psycho-pop mixed with chamber metal disco, punk funk and schizoid proggy cacophony. While i don’t find CRUSH DEPTH to be quite as addictive as “Pre-Emptive False Rapture,” it’s a much different and varied release that showcases the band’s ability to craft unique textures, tones and timbres without the excessive bombast. Some would even call it more mature but i just call it different. It’s clear that the musicians are well seasoned veterans who can navigate hairpin turns like a swarm of bees en masse and while the prog, metal and punk aspects have been toned down a bit, they still erupt unexpectedly on CRUSH DEPTH when you least expect them to!

Ignoring the self-titled debut which is impossible to find the experimental chamber rock orchestra that calls itself CHROME HOOF released this three track EP between the debut and the better known second offering “Pre-Emptive False Rapture.” With an album as wild as that i’ve never gone back to find out what came before and this little gem BEYOND ZADE dishes out all the wild and unhinged avant-prog meets electronic minimalism, math rock and occasional bursts of sludge metal.

“Krunching Down on the Skull of a Newt” opens with jingle jangles of bells or something but after nearly a minute finds a punkish guitar stomp joining in but then it disappears and then replaced by a hypnotizing Krautrock styled repetitive guitar and bass groove with only the intermittent drumming offering variation. The slowly build up introduces swing jazz horns and crazed female vocals that end up screaming as the music becomes louder and more cacophonous. After a deviation from the main groove, a new one is established only with avant-prog time signature angularity and then the original returns and bombastically carries on.

“Year Ram” delves straight into sludge metal territory with heavy distorted guitar riffs that slow down to doom metal pace. It slowly turns into a chamber rock track with the guitars dropping out and the oboe becoming the prominent sound but the doom metal aspects awake from their slumber and usher the track out with a thundering roar with increased volume, faster tempos and busy note stuffing of each increment of the repetitive cyclical loops. And then a head banging metal grand finale. Overall this short but sweet EP showcases CHROME HOOF’s wild and unhinged beginnings where they fused metal and punk bombast with pretty much everything they could think of!

While it’s tempting to think that most of the German rock bands of the early 70s were cranking out the kosmische sounds of Krautrock in the vein of Amon Duul II or Can, there existed in fact a few bands that weren’t seeking escapism but rather searching for speed and volume excesses. While some Kraut bands like Embryo favored jazz and others like Tangerine Dream dropped the rock altogether to craft the freakiest electronic sounds ever heard, others like Birth Control, Lucifer’s Friend and NIGHT SUN were going for the early heavy metal gusto, more infatuated by Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath than anything coming from the homeland. NIGHT SUN was formed in Mannheim in 1970 and only existed for three years as well as releasing only a single album yet the band’s lone offering MOURNIN’ is considered one of the heaviest rock albums to have emerged just after the world of proto-metal had been born.

While the Scorpions would become Germany’s biggest heavy metal band, in 1972 that band’s debut “Lonesome Crow” had one foot in the world of Krautrock and the other in heavier rock but NIGHT SUN on the other hand delivered one scorcher of an album that has gone down in history as one of metal’s most essential early contributors to inspiring the future sounds of thrash metal, power metal and even progressive metal for that matter. Like many bands of the day before the term metal had really become a true genre and the spirit of experimentation was en vogue, MOURNIN’ was more than an early precursor to the world of metal but also delivered an intriguing mix of 60s heavy psych, excursions of psychedelia and most of all labyrinthine progressive rock elements that made this band one of the earliest heavy prog bands that true embraced the wild complexities that the early 70s prog albums cranked out.

Despite delivering a scorching heavy rock album, the band was lucky enough to find Conny Planck in the producer’s seat who had famously worked with Faust, Kraftwerk, David Bowie and a gazillion other prominent acts of the era but despite that good fortune was utterly ignored suffering the same indignity that many a band experienced with lackluster record labels that had no clue how to market their products. Somewhat of a mix of Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Lucifer’s Friend, NIGHT SUN sounded like no other although it embraced the same organ driven heaviness that many heavier bands were embracing during the day. The band knew no limits though and through the nine tracks that mostly cranked out heavy guitar riffs still found a way to incorporate the bassoon and saxophone into the mix. The album starts out with the blitzkrieg delivery of “Plastic Shotgun” which features some of the fastest riffing and accompanying bass and drum action that the 70s had to offer.

The album meanders in the world of psychedelia with the near 8-minute “Got A Bone Of My Own” which despite offering a heady excursion into trippiness didn’t really fit in with the world of Krautrock as even during these more chilled moments the band was still based in bluesy rock that had moments of heavy guitar distortion, trippy echo effects and a heavy psych sound more in the vein of Jimi Hendrix than fellow countrymen Birth Control. One of the most prominent features of NIGHT SUN’s proggy heavy rock was the idiosyncratic vocal style of Bruno Schaab who sounded like a more ambitious Robert Plant with his brash bravado and nasal tone structures. The composiitons were heavily laced with many hairpin rhythmic shifts with extra tight guitar and organ interplay. The riffs are particularly bombastic and tracks like “Nightmare” offer a frenzied adrenalized speedfest which prognosticates the worlds of thrash and power metal styles that would emerge in the next decade.

NIGHT SUN’s sole contribution to the world of heavy 70s prog is a must for anyone seeking out the origins of metal and despite having a somewhat dated sound that perfectly exemplifies the zeitgeist of the era is a feast to the ears for those who love the early proto-metal sounds of blues rocks blasting in high decibels accompanied by rampaging tempos and touches of downtime with psychedelic time period freakiness. NIGHT SUN had its origins in the 60s band jazz band Take Five which never released any material but was popular on the Mannheim circuit. The last track on MOURNIN’ titled “Don’t Start Flying” offers a tribute to that band with clever saxophone and bassoon extras. While the band didn’t really craft a new sound per se as it exemplified the standard bluesy rock with distortion and speed turned up a few notches, NIGHT SUN nevertheless offered an excellent adventurous album within that framework and is now considered one of those lost gems of the 70s.

The third release from ZENDEN GREENPURP isn’t another EP and not a full album’s worth of material but rather the mere single titled I THINK I”M GOING SANE which doesn’t appear on either of the band’s two EPs. Perhaps a teaser for a full album and perhaps a curve ball which this band seems to relish in throwing but once again the band dishes out another delectable morsel of psychedelic prog punk metal in its unusual crazed style that has made this band stand out amongst the hoards of musical acts out these days.

This single is rooted more in the world of heavy psychedelic rock although the guitar and compositional style are more of a frantic anarchic punk style but the precision and stamina involved also make it seem more like a metal band. Once again this mindfu.c.kers offer a psychotic display of frenetic musical mastery in cahoots with Jack Brissenden’s insane asylum vocal style that’s part Mr Doctor of Devil Doll, part Captain Beefheart and part narrator for Phantom Of The Opera. The band offers the perfect mix of elements and although this single is significantly different than anything on the EPs, this one seems to have a more “normal” flow. While still proggy it’s not as incessantly bombastic in that department.

The title is brilliant actually as I THINK I’M GOING SANE casts some serious irony as the band comes off as utterly insane! This band has really come out of nowhere and i’m quite fascinated by its unique approach and stamina to pull it off in such heaviness and fast tempo fury. Sounding like no other act i’ve ever heard the ZENDEN GREENPURPS have really weaseled their way onto my fave band list rather quickly. Innovative and uncompromising, this is a band to watch out for in the future as two EPs and a single show the band has the chops and the creative fortitude to continue crafting interesting music without burning out. This single is no exception. Long live the PURPS!

ZENDEN GREENPURP hit the Reading, England scene in 2021 and has been dazzling their fellow Brits ever since with some of the most wild and kooky music that seems like the chimeric forging of Devil Doll, The Doors, Captain Beefheart and well…. The Rocky Horror Show! This theatrical heavy psychedelic prog act debuted with its three track debut “Quadrillionth” which featured a bizarre mix of proggy punk, proggy metal and proggy psychedelic rock completely brought to the insane asylum by the strange histrionic vocal eccentrics of lead singer Jack Brissenden who sound like he just may have escaped from the local looney bin and jumped on stage to sing with a band he just met!

The GREENPURPS return in 2024 with a brand spankin’ new EP titled DARKSPACE LTD. of yet again only three tracks and while the band’s overall stylistic approach hasn’t shifted gears too much, there are a few differences which allow the two EPs to stand apart somewhat. This album features a lot more mellowed out moments with piano based melodies finding smooth synthesized atmospheres that offer some downtime from the frenetic discharge of adrenalized psych rock run amok. While still difficult to actually differentiate if this is punk based or more in the realms of metal as the heavy chord stomping and occasional solo take it out of the world of punk completely, the right answer seems to be simply a heavy psychedelic display of avant-proggy excess totally run amok.

The tempos are a bit slowed down on DARKSPACE LTD at least at key moments that offer more contrast than the balls to the wall frantic debut which didn’t seem to let the foot off the gas for even the tiniest of moments. While the heavy prog psych punky metal is still fully implemented on this second EP offering, ZENDEN GREENPURP offers more contrast and in that regard this second coming reminds me of Mr Doctor and his Devil Doll act even more so than the first. While the opening “Back Album Cover” evokes a lot of the heavy romping that the debut offered, the second track “Beautiful Dread Eyes” is a lot different with a more gothic feel with creepy melodic scales and Brissendon belting out crazed dialogue like an insane clown trying to escape a psychotic circus scenario.

The closing “Void Observation Technician” turns up the distorted grungy guitar heft again allowing the bantering bass and bombastic percussion to enter the realms of metal madness. Once again crazed vocals hop, skip and jump over the steady rhythmic drive with crazy time signature psychedelic keyboard runs frenetically whiz up and down the scales. The album also finds small respites of just atmospheric backdrops with the vocals becoming more of a whispered craziness rather than bleated, bellowed or clownishly squealed. The track also offers some creepy interludes and a wider breadth of tempos, timbres and dynamics offered than the previous two tracks. This track sort of encompasses everything the band has dabbled in so far and crafts a feisty little smorgasbord of frantic freakiness unlike anything else you could ever possibly experience in the vast realms of the music universe.

Wow! Two EPs in and ZENDEN GREENPURP is one of my favorite bands of all time as these guys dish out everything i love about a band. They are unique, creative, excellent musicians, brilliant composers and have seamlessly melded various genres together as if they all melted together like butter in a heated up pan. The band also has the perfect strategy of keeping you hungry after the three songs so you actually want more! One of the coolest bands to hit the scene anywhere in the 2020s if you ask me. A bit unclassifiable but psychedelic prog punk metal would do the trick. Whether these guys are going to keep cranking out EPs or have a full album in the works is anybody’s guess but i certainly will be waiting for whatever these guys have crafted on planet freak-a-zoid. What can i say except i love this band!