Jane - Age Of Madness (Reissue) (1978/1997)

"Seventh studio album from the Hanover Krautrockers Jane. The most distinctive quality of Age of Madness is its crawling, slowly building crescendo of rolling rhythms that make this album more Pink Floydian than the group's other releases. Though not as bluesy as Together or as Allman-like as Fire, Water, Earth & Air, I think any Jane fan will love the rich textures of Age of Madness. This is just another or those really great albums that has been consistently high-priced and difficult to find since its release. Will apeal to guitar fans everywhere, Zeppelin, Purple and more..."

"Age of Madness" is usually referred to as Jane's last good album. The songs were considerably shorter and simpler than before, but the sound and music was in the same style that Jane had developed in the late 70s: synth-based, spacey and atmospheric tunes side by side with heavy riffs and more down to earth-tracks. The title-track, "Memory Symphony", "Auroville" and "Meadow" was spacey symphonic progressive rock at its most typical German. "Bad Game" is a solid hard rock track, and Hess delivers some nice slide-guitar in "With Her Smile". However, the single "Love Song" was an embarrassing attempt at a pop-hit, and "Get This Power" sounds like it could have come from "Jane III" or "Lady". In other words: basic and uninteresting blues-rock with a hard edge. But with their later albums in mind, "Age of Madness" was most of the time yet another satisfying slice of spacey, German symphonic progressive rock with some hard rock elements thrown in. But their career was pretty much downhill from here, and you can safely avoid all their later albums."