Birth Control

Birth Control's second album, Operation, stands as one of the band's finest recordings, getting the vote as the second best album of 1971 by one of Germany's leading music magazines. Operation has Birth Control employing a nine-piece string section as well as a smaller brass entourage in order to produce a larger sound, and while their progressive air is just beginning to flourish, a rather large difference in musical strength and instrumental craft is noted right away. Not fully abstract or left-of-center just yet, the powerful crunch of Bruno Frenzel's guitar surely leads the way, dominating the rhythms of every track while complimenting the aeronautics of the keyboard passages. With the tempos quicker because of the stern synthesizer work, the entire album moves along at a brisk pace…

Backdoor Possibilities emerges as a rather fragmented and patchy concept album about a businessman who becomes trapped in an elevator with death himself, who, in turn, tries to convince the man that life is more important than schedules and the blandness of everyday ordinance. With 14 tracks that mostly fall under the five-minute range, Birth Control's main story line loses its grasp quickly, but the music itself almost instantly takes over and blurs the band's allegorical idea, replacing it with detours of jazz- and rock-styled excursions. The album arises as an art rock piece with progressive rock penchants surrounding the perimeter, using a multitude of peculiar instruments like finger cymbals, congas, sand blocks, and sonor drums to instill the abstractness of the intentioned concept…

It's just good old Birth Control which we all like: lots of roaring Hammond organs, longer tracks with some hard rocking soloing mixed with simpler rock'n'roll tunes, Bernd Noske's vocals with slightly unusual accent and all the other attributes of this group created in early 70s of last century. "Alsatian" really proves that in XXI century Birth Control and its heavy prog are still alive. Compositions are much longer than in last proceeded releases, what gives opportunity for all musicians to show what they can with their instruments. They also offer very good balance of hard and soft material. The whole album is also quite long so it gives us clear impression that for sure this time heads of musicians were full of many ideas which they wanted to present it their music.