Band : Colour Haze
Album title : All
Label : Electrohasch
Distributor : Sonic Rendezvous
Release date : 28/07/2008
Release : CD (or 2LP)

Aach...Colour Haze...like so many people I made my acqaintance with this München based German band in 2003 with the album Los Sounds De Krauts (which was the first release through the new Elektrohasch imprint, founded by CH singer/ guitarist and mainstay Stefan Koglek)..but of course the history of this band goes back a slight bit further than that.

In fact, the band was started in August 1994 by Koglek, drummer Tim Höfer (who had already been playing together since 1989; first in Krautwave and then in Jazzcore formation Surfce Tension) and bassist Christian Wiesner. In those days the band was still in an early phase, playing what they themselves describe as "artificial Doom-Psycore". One year later the band's debut album Chopping Machine (got really smashing ly positive response from the media, but no decent distribution) was released through the small Münchener label David Records. During 1996 the guys recorded a couple of songs for compilations, and played gigs all over Germany. In '97 Höferleft to join Noise-Core act Tailgate, Felix Neuenhoff was recruited as singer, the guys wrote and recorded some music, did a couple of gigs, but simply could not find a steady drummer to hold on to, untill Manfred Merwald (a veteran of the Hardcore/ Crossover scene and also played with several Tom Waits cover bands) was found in August 1998. Just before that Wiesner had departed, and a replacement was found in one Philipp Rasthofer that same month. The new quartet recorded the full-length Seven, and copied it to 50 cd-Rs. But Felix was too occupied with football and his job and left the band in May 1999.

So Stefan took over vocal duties again, and it worked! Now as a trio, CH wrote a great number of songs, some of which were recorded in the bnd's rehearsal room during October 1999 for the full-length Periscope (regrettably again only released on cd-R; 100 copies this time!). In early 2000 the boys recorded CO2, of which again 100 cd-R copies were burnt. The band also self-financed the release of this album on vinyl in July that same year. 2000 would be a pivotal year in the band's breakthrough to a wider audience, as they played at the Burg Herzberg Hippie Festival, the biggest in its kind in Europe. Gigs all over Germany followed, MonsterZero Records took on the job of releasing CO2 in CD format in September...the first pressing of which, along with the 450 Lps, were sold before the year was over. That November CH started recording yet another album titled Ewige Blümenkraft, released on MonsterZero on a rotation of 1,000 vinyl copies (one of which has since found its way into my personal collection) in July 2001, the CD version following in November. The release makes it bigtime with the media, gaining the band accolades such as "Germany's Finest Stoner Rock band" and being named as the most outstanding bands in the European scene. Earlier that year, Koglek and former drummer Tim Höfer start work on a remix of the '99 Periscope album.

2002 became a very busy year for the band, as they were recording songs for their upcoming masterpiece Los Sounds De Krauts as well as re-releasing older CDs, contributing songs to various compilation albums, working on a live video (Live At The Hinndreich 23.03.02 was to become Elektrohasch's firstrelease), and played tons of gigs in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland...some of which were at festivals during Summer (Wutzrock Hamburg and Stoned From The Underground in Ertfurt), and a German tour with Gas Giant during October.
2003's Los Sounds De Kauts (which got its vinyl release through Nasoni Records)couldn't have come at a better time, and the first album on Elektrohasch was indeed quite a success, both with the media (who hailed the album) and the fans (who bought the album in droves...well, in enough uantities to quote the album as "Album Of The Year" in many Internet discussion forums).

2004 was another busy release year for CH, Elektrohasch not only releasing two split releases (a 7-inch with Gas Giant and a 10-inch with Belgium's finest, Hypnos 69 – issued in the Benelux through Rock And Roll Radio), but also a self-titled LP/ CD (which included the band's longest track ever, clocking in at 20 minutes). In 2006 followed the band's contribution of a cover of Cactus' "One Way Or Another" to the Small Stone Records compilation Sucking On The '70s – Back in The Saddle Again, and the band's last-minus-one album Tempel (again released both on CD and vinyl).

Now normally I wouldn't even be doing this review, the genre usually reserved to Concrete Web's "specialist" Cosmic Masseur akà Peter Brems, but due to circumstances our man is out for a while, so...the honor to do the review of the newest of one of Europe's finest Psychedelic Doom/ Stoner Rock became mine. Now don't you ask me to compare this album with any of the band's previous material, okay? As the genre is not normally in my field of work, but I am indééd fond of it, I dó buy the occasional album and enjoy it to the fullest...but listen to it with quite a different ear than when I would have to review it...I mean, that's only natural right? Anyway, the album was recorded at Hannover's Institut Für Wihlklangforschung between December 2007 and March 2008 with engineer Willy Dammeier and assistent engineer Mario Oberpucher, who lent some truly nice sitar tones to the songs "Stars" (with "only" 3:23 of length the shortest on on the album and Philipp also playing acoustic guitar, the acoustic song sounds like a Monster Magnet on valium) and "One". Other guests during the recordings were Christian Hawallek (who contributed his Hammond B-3 organ sounds to "Lights", some grand piano at the end of "If", and again B-3 and Mellotron to the album's Opus Magnum and title track "All" – 14:49 in length – and the second-longest "Fall" - almost 10 minutes in length), and Daniela Heiser (but what's in a name? Sorry, just a pun in the translation! She brought a bit of her lovely voice to "Stars", "Fall", and "One").

For those among you wanting to listen to a couple of the new songs before deciding to buy the album, I'm sorry to say that I haven't found any site to turn you to, but there's plenty of older material at myspace.com/colourhaze, and even more at the "music" section of the band's own colourhaze.de (notably the whole self-titled album and CO2 album, plus several tracks off Los Sounds De Krauts, Ewige Blumenkraft, Periscope, and Seven). In my book, Colour Haze belongs among those bands which don't even nééd a sneak preview anymore. In fact, I didn't know yet that there was a new album out, or I would've passed by the record store already to order the LP...which is exactly what I'm going to do after the week-end!!! "Best Album Of he Year"-list material people, have no doubt, have no doubt!

98/100

Tony.