SCHNAUSER ~ KILL ALL HUMANS

Schnauser play a mixture of psychedelic pop and instrumentals and have been influenced by a wide range of 60s bands including Soft Machine, Egg, Blossom Toes, The Doors, The Kinks, Love and The Beatles. Schnauser are hugely popular in their native Armenia and regularly play in front of crowds of people at the disused slaughterhouses which constitute Armenia's music venues. Schnauser formed in Yerevan, Armenia in 2003 after a chance meeting between Jurgen and Ken during their National Service. After accidentally shooting Ken in the pelvis, Jurgen dragged his seemingly lifeless body three miles through driving rain and minefields to the local veterinary surgeons who operated immediately. Luckily they replaced his burst pelvis with a fresh pig's one and he opened his eyes to Jurgen singing 'Walt Disney's Head'. They vowed to join forces as a musical team with Ken's cousin Klaus on drums and Jurgen's table tennis partner Nikolai on organ.

This rather fine album opens with the expansive, but disjointed, jerky 'Nest of Hairs' and sets the tone for a whole album of pure post-psychedelic freakerama. Poppy and uplifting enough on many songs to sit comfortably with the so called "young, hip and trendy" but manic enough to recall the crazy days of early 70s Zappa and Beefheart. More than that, the album is consistently brilliant from start to finish slipping easily through astonishingly well-crafted instrumentals to fabulously inventive pop songs. 'There's a Fist' has an organ sound and so many lyrical and musical twists and turns even The Beatles would be proud of such a thing. My God, if Armenian music is all this good we are all missing a trick. We'll even forgive them their suits and haircuts for this musical revelation.

Reviewed in Fuse, UK

This UK quartet are augmented on this recording by seven guest musicians, including Sacramento’s own Anton Barbeau on additional vocals. They make a big bright muscular melodic psychedelic pop rock sound, that’s not a million miles away from The Lucky Bishops on a good day. A highly energized and inventive guitar, bass, keyboards and drums core with two or three good singers that can harmonize well. Add additional drums, double bass, piano, lead guitar, and male and female vocals and you have a pretty packed package of goodness, all of which would mean little if these guys didn’t have the song-writing chops to make it all worthwhile. Besides the aforementioned L.B.s, these folks bring to mind prime 60’s culprits like: The Beatles, Millenium, Spirit, The Beach Boys, The Who and Small Faces, as well as bearing favorable wavelengths to contemporary folks like The Green Pajamas, The Photon Band, Motorpsycho, and Dipsomaniacs, among others.

Reviewed in Dream Magazine by George Parsons, USA

Is this an (in)joke? Because I find it a little hard to swallow that this collection of genuine-sounding freakbeat psychedelia was put together by a band from Armenia. Presumably it’s a project band featuring the likes of Anton Barbeau, Marco Rossi (Cheese), Geoff Carbis (The Bitter Little Cider Apples) and the like. So nod along like you get the joke and enjoy this crisp, authentic tribute to psychedelia.

Reviewed at Power Of Pop by Kevin Mathews, SINGAPORE

Don't worry, their bark is worse than their bite! Formed in Yerevan, Armenia, back in 2003, Schnauser bring us an interesting album mixing psychedelic pop and instrumental pieces with an amusing slant at times (check out the excellent 'Moron')! Chosen as CD of the week.

Reviewed at Starship Overflow by Garry Lee, UK

"Armenia City in the Sky"... If you like The Who, you must remember this song of the The Who Sell Out... But what this has to see with the Schnauser? Well, they are of Armenia... Rock and roll behind the iron curtain! If it still existed, to little, Curtain of Iron.... The Armenian group obtained in its record of estréia, to join some artists of the stamp Pink Hedgehog - Landmark Rossi, Anton Barbeau, Lucy Watkins, etc - to temper its footprint years 60 still more. Kill All Humans is an excellent record. The band knew to sew influences of Love, Doors, Beach Boys and Beatles, impregnated of mood. The work was launched in 2005 and can be bought through the stamp or of the proper site of the band, one of the most amused existing, as much for the mood (the biography is hilária), as for the obsession with years 60 and taken off acid. A great order.

Reviewed at Mofo by Rubens Leme Da Costa, BRAZIL

First impressions of Schnauser - Byrdsian jingly jangly, Arthur Lee’s Love inspired inventive melodic otherwordy, at the cutting edge of psych rock. If this review is reading like a stream of consciousness then that’s because the music is so hard to define. Hey, but how’s this for a list of influences? Egg, Blossom Toes, The Doors and The Kinks. Soft Machine is also cited and it’s hard to see why except for the playfulness of the lyrics and restrained experimentation. One of the early songs had me thinking of the bluesier moments of early Colosseum until the McCartneyish bassline kicked in. ‘Kill All Humans’ is Schnauser’s ‘Mr Kite’ and The Beatles are obviously a big influence. Don’t be alarmed by the title - the song is about humans’ tendency to render extinct all other species with the story line centring on the last tiger in Hobart, Tasmania. (This is brilliantly depicted on a Pink Hedgehog DVD sampler I was sent by that nice man Simon Felton). The fairground organ on the mind blowing ‘There’s A Fist’ also shows a touch George Martin would have been proud of, but the overriding impression here is that this song would not have been out of place on Forever Changes.

One could say the same about ‘Toys For Boys’- where on Earth did Pink Hedgehog find a band as good as this? (Apparently they formed in Armenia, hardly a hotbed of classic psychedelic rock I would imagine). There’s a sardonic irony in the lyrics that has Ray Davies or maybe even Mothers Of Invention all over it - ‘Hail To The Corpse’ is a good example. If you took the words away the slow Latin rhythm and Hollies harmonies suggest something a lot softer, then the synth and punch line come in and a few guitar licks borrowed from Steve Howe show that Schnauser are at a seriously good creative and musical level. There is an astonishing consistency about the music. The 3:23 of ‘What Is Postmodern?’ left me quite breathless. There’s even a song about Walt Disney’s head waiting in a cryogenic lab! A list of guest musicians add greatly to the fullness of the sound and bassist/vocalist Ken Hauser’s production is good. Kill All Humans is quite simply the best psychedelic rock album I’ve heard in ages and will appeal to all who like serious subject matter in their music done in a humorous and infectious way, with songs that would certainly grace the Love songbook! Highly recommended.

Reviewed in Zeitgeist by Phil Jackson, UK