PANZERBALLETT

PANZERBALLETT
HART GENOSSEN VON ABBA BIS ZAPPA (2009)
320 KBPS

Some say the jazz police will despair over Panzerballet, the German jazz-metal band led by spectacular guitarist Jan Zehrfeld that Die Welt described as "faster than Metallica, more powerful than Motörhead, and funnier than Rammstein". It's easy to imagine that more sensitive listeners might flee this experience with their fingers in their ears simply on mental-health grounds, but it's hard to believe it would nowadays be dismissed as un-jazz or anti-jazz, since some of it suggests John Zorn, and some even early Steely Dan. Panzerballet made waves with its 2008 debut Starke Stücke, and its successor cranks up the intensity with which Terje Rypdal-like guitar ambiance turns into heavy-rock power chords, sax-led free-jazz, snarling gothic vocals, preeningly cool jazz and ironic love-ballads that sound like Brüno singing with an improv band. Guitarist Zehrfeld is an exhilarating player who seems to relish heart-stopping chord-slams and freshly phrased bebop sprints equally. The interpretations rip apart the Simpsons theme, Abba's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! and a Zappa medley with even-handed indifference to the originals. It'll be too frivolously ironic for some, but it's great fun.

1 The Simpsons
2 Bird Wild Web
3 Jadoo
4 Mein Teil
5 Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
6 Kulturzeit
7 The Mediterranean Breeze
8 Ein bisschen Frieden
9 Weary Eyes
10 Zappa - Medley From Hell - Part I
i. Let's Make The Water Turn Black
ii. Harry, You're A Beast
iii. The Orange County Lumber Truck
11 Zappa - Medley From Hell - Part II
iv. Oh No
v. City Of Tiny Lights
vi. Evelyn, A Modified Dog