MouthGetaway
Reviewed 11 June 2023
How retro can you go? This is the question I asked myself when listening to Getaway, the fourth longplayer by German rock band Mouth. The typeface of the band logo could have come straight from the late sixties or early seventies, the cover artwork in a 1972 painting from Hans Rolf Maria Koller that fits the hazy atmosphere on the album.
The opener is the side-spanning title track, taking up already half of the running time. Although Mouth quote Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant and Soft Machine among their influences, it sounds to me more like muscular hard hitting kraut rock as heard through a progressive rock filter, with lots of vintage synths like organs and mellotrons. The vocals a melodic but possess a pleasant harshness. This 23-minute-long opener has seven movements that seamlessly merge into the following part. This may not be a Close To The Edge or a Supper’s Ready, but when it comes to side-long epics, this is one of the better ones that you won’t get tired listening to.
The B-side contains five shorter tracks, starting with On The Boat, a not even three minute long heavy rock track that proves that the guys from Cologne can also keep things concise. Asylum / The Sea is a mellow six minute long instrumental full of swirling mellotron waves, reminding of the more progressive moments of Led Zeppelin circa 1973-1975. Purge And Hunt is another longish track, with fierce organ parts, heavy guitars and scratchy vocals, ending with an instrumental part. Once is the album’s pre-release single, and shows that Mouth can even write hits. This track combines a sixties beat groove with progressive mellotron parts, and a chorus you won’t forget anytime soon. The album ends with another, this time shorter, mellotronic instrumental, and frankly two such pieces on one side feels a bit like padding.
I was positively surprised by Mouth and their new album Getaway. The title track, despite its majestic length, feels focused and never overstays its welcome. The shorter songs that follow are also highly enjoyable, except that the two instrumentals made me think that the band had better waited for two regular songs to surface. It’s still a great exercise in vintage progressive rock, and should appeal to fans of bands from the seventies, like Birth Control, although there are also strong parallels to Motorpsycho who have been doing something quite similar for the last thirty-plus years.