A lot of bands these days seem, to my tired reviewer’s ears anyway, to be little more than identikit composites of bands that have gone before. That cannot, however, be said of Space Schädel with their album “Opus Schädel 1” being an almost maniacal and distinctly eclectic collection of angular songs that truly deserve to be filed under quirky.
Whilst you could easily fit Space Schädel - Maximilian Breu, Olga Reznichenko, David Birschel and Stephan Deller - into any number of genres given the adventures in music styles that the listener is taken on over the duration of this album, it is always clear that this is a band following its own path and their ability to steal from art-rock, prog and nineties grunge and mix it all into a melting pot with psychotic synthesisers, riffing guitars and freeform sensibilities makes for an interesting listen. The most curious aspect, however, is the remarkably conventional lyrics that seem designed to balance this band’s otherwise oddball tendencies.
Space Schädel hail from Leipzig and, if I were ever to find myself in that city, it would be practically a necessity to track this band down. They are not an ordinary band so they may well not appeal to the ordinary yet, for those who like something a bit different, this band will likely hit the mark.