»Attack Time« by Zeus B. Held was released on a pop label in 1981, which was certainly not a good idea, because Bernd wasn’t exactly playing solo what Hannelore used to play on Sundays to accompany her bake a cake party. But what didn’t sell then can always become a hit 40 years later. At least that’s what Bureau B thought when they repackaged it as »one of the most exciting records of the experimental Krautrock era«. It’s certainly a statement that sounds good on paper. But you have to deliver on statements, otherwise you look pretty stupid.
But here’s the all-clear. Nobody is stupid here. It’s just that a lot of things come together at the same time. The guitar. The synthesiser. The stuff that people poured into themselves in the seventies to make it into the eighties, and so on. One music-obsessed contemporary or another may have identified this weekly soup as the »missing link« between »Kraut« and »NDW«. In truth, nobody really gave a shit in the early 1980s. In any case, Bernd Held didn’t anticipate, pre-empt or even conclude anything. It was simply the times. A computer world. For all uncharted territory. And then no more.
Attack Time
