Description
When people talk about German heavy metal, they usually refer to the early eighties, yet the story begins a decade earlier. The seventies were also a gold-rush age for heavy guitars from Germany.
Whereas 'Heavy Kraut! Part 1' (BCD17721) documented the wild beginnings, the second part is set around the turn of the decade and describes the gradual transformation of hard rock into heavy metal under the influence of AC/DC and Judas Priest.
The many forgotten bands that pioneered this movement include Straight Shooter, Faithful Breath, Bastard, Beast, Rampage, Bullet, Breslau, Viva and - last but not least - Accept. They created a sound that would soon be internationally competitive in all respects.
It didn't take long for the metal underground to consolidate and establish a reasonably functional infrastructure that enabled more and more young German bands to professionalize. In 1983, the critical mass is reached and the scene explodes.
With newly remastered recordings, this part closes the last remaining gap in our 'Kraut' series, from the beginnings of the German rock scene of 1968 in the west of the republic, pejoratively dubbed 'Krautrock,' and the prog rock movement in the GDR, which existed for a good ten years from around 1970, to the hard and original playing styles up to around the mid-1980s in West Germany.
PLEASE, NOTE: liner notes in German!
- The second and final part of the CD documentary from Bear Family Records describing the transfusion of beat and rock in 1960s Germany into hard rock and heavy metal covers the stage from 1977 to 1983.
- On two double CDs, each with a booklet of 96 pages containing biographies of all the musicians and the corresponding illustrations, Frank Schafer, one of the acknowledged heavy metal experts, outlines the rocky road to the emergence of an independent hard rock alternative in this country.
- Among the many unjustly forgotten protagonists and pioneers of this exciting era are Straight Shooter, Faithful Breath, Bastard, Beast, Rampage, Bullet, Breslau, Viva and Accept.
- 'Heavy Kraut! Part 2' chronologically follows the short but consistent path to deafness.