Out Of Focus - Out Of Focus (1971)

The second album from this German band.

Out Of Focus was a quintet here with a lineup of flutes, saxophone, guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, stylophone, organ, piano and English vocals.

Out Of Focus is one of those almost-great German bands who nearly made it. Their 1970 debut album Wake Up! was a reasonable good album. The band was then a prog rock band.

Out Of Focus is a transitional album where the band stand with one leg in progressive rock and the other leg in the fusion camp. The band was moving towards fusion and indeed became a fusion band.

The use of saxophones is most definate jazzy and in the fusion camp. The flutes and guitars are still stuck in folk rock influenced progressive rock.

There is a lot of good guitar solos here which bridges the progressive rock and fusion gap. Well, in the case of this album, there is no gap between two genres. They are two parts of one harmony.

The result is a good album. It has it's flaws. But it still comes through as a good album, this forty odd minutes long album. It is one of those non-krautrock German albums well worth checking out.

3 points