The 1980 Listening Post - Gravestone - War

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Gravestone War Genre: Psych/Prog Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: War Waiting For Peace The second album from Bavaria’s Gravestone might have you thinking they came around a bit late. Listening to it, it’s conceivable they hunkered down in the studio in 1970 to cut a disc to promote while touring with Canterbury’s Caravan, and came out of a monster jam to realize their hash-induced trance had left them 9 years too late with the 15 minute reel running out long before the jam really got good. They cleaned up the ending, named it “Summer 1979” in honor of the time of their awakening, and finished up the album. I joke, but “War” is actually a solid psych prog album, if a bit rough around the edges. This is not the jazz fusion prog of later Soft Machine or the calisthenic / acrobatic prog of Yes, ELP, or even Genesis. Nor is it the freak prog of early Amon Duul II. It’s more in the vein of magick and folk-tinged Jethro Tull or Caravan, or maybe the mid-70s Amon Duul II that lost the Krautrock script and started veering into something more conventional. [1] “War” is not really so far removed from something you might have heard at Woodstock – earnest hippie anti-war anthems over energetic psych rock, transitioning to slow, blissed out jams over chill organs. Fast and loud to slow and dreamy, rinse and repeat. The band has the music chops to pull this off, and the songs aren’t bad, but the album can be a bit clichéd and corny. Beyond the peacenik stuff, there’s the rather embarrassing “It’s Over” from the “why oh why did she leave me?” genre. Rubberneckers may appreciate the earnest histrionics on display here [2]: “It didn’t matter how I felt Entangled in our sweet LOVE Our life became a puppet show, But now it’s over … GO!” Apart from that song, the album makes for a good listen as it ebbs and flows, short on highlights but a touch better than the sum of its parts. The sound is a bit thin – maybe a poor transfer? – but the album holds up well enough otherwise. Note: ignore the song markers linked in this YouTube version. Sadly they point to arbitrary positions (if a song is 10:26 long, the marker sends you to 10:26 / 36:00), rather than pointing to the starts of songs. ********** 1. For those unfamiliar, note that Krautrock is not merely synonymous with German rock. Folks who write about the genre locate it somewhere from the late 60s to mid 70s, and though there isn’t one shared sound, these bands distinguish themselves from US/UK music of the time across more vectors than merely nationality or language. 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxjxKrh3mkA&t=1153s