BIRTH CONTROL – Operation
Birth Control are another German band, like Embryo, who I have never sampled before because I always thought that they would be too commercial for my tastes. This was purely because their albums were imported into the UK and sold bucketloads in the 70’s, and so I assumed they were a hard rock act. Reading up on them, and trying numerous other German bands over the past decade I now realize that even ‘just a hard rock act’ who hailed from Germany would be worth hearing. Consequently these two albums from the band were added to the collection. These are their second and fourth efforts, having skipped their debut because it apparently contains just the sort of unadventurous hard and jazz rock that I had feared, and the third as it was a compilation of the first two albums plus rare tracks. A line-up change and rethink in musical policy means that everything from 1971’s ‘Operation’ onwards has something worth hearing on it. Organ and guitar dominate the sound, with the organ in particular being well used both as a backing for the guitar, and also in some fine solos, most especially on ‘Just Before The Sun Will Rise’. ‘Stop Little Lady’ is a great opener, setting out a hard rock stall from the off, and being one of the shorter tracks it hooks you in straight away. ‘Flesh And Blood’ is more straight ahead rock, but ‘Pandemonium’ has a great dark edge to it, and the spooky organ and spikey guitar all add to the atmospherics. ‘Let Us Do It Now’ is a piano ballad, quite out of keeping with the rest of the album, but by the time the band have kicked in and an orchestra has been added it comes over as quite an effective closing number. On the whole great hard rock, and I can hear why fans of Purple etc lapped it up.