Friday Full-Length: Colour Haze, Colour Haze
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 9th, 2026 by JJ KoczanI will gladly, happily, shout-it-from-the-rooftops-loudly cite Colour Haze‘s 2005 self-titled outing as one of the best heavy albums ever made. Like any great work of art, it teaches you something about its creators, about what form can be. It welcomes you in and shows you how to engage with it, which in this case is you let it run wild with a kind of freedom that’s rarely been so gorgeously manifest in any form of rock and roll. It creates a space for the listener to dwell and changes you for the better. It teaches you something you didn’t know, whether that’s about what heavy music can do or about yourself. It’s among the warmest sounding records I’ve ever heard, and for Colour Haze it was the undeniable arrival point that everything they’d been working toward over the prior nine years had been building up to. Nearly 22 years after its release, it remains essential and declarative in kind.
The Munich-based three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, bassist Philipp Rasthofer and drummer Manfred Merwald had been honing their chemistry since 1998’s Seven (discussed here), pursuing an increasingly progressive sound and, on prior records like 2001’s Ewige Blumenkraft (discussed here) and 2003’s Los Sounds de Krauts (discussed here), beginning to blend that with a burgeoning willingness to jam and a heavy-hippie aesthetic impeccably suited to the mellow serenity of their approach, their influence from classic heavy rock, their fluidity and the warmth of tone that’s so prevalent across these seven songs/56 minutes.
They made Colour Haze in four days, working with engineer Willi Dammeier and Koglek as producer — this is also the first Colour Haze album to be solely released through Koglek‘s label, Elektrohasch Schallplatten — at Institut Für Wohlklangforschung in Hannover. Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt, whose Dreamer album had already been released on Elektrohasch by this time, sat in on synth for the 22-minute manifesto “Peace, Brothers & Sisters!” and Christian Hawellek began a series of appearances on Hammond organ that would continue through the next four albums, contributing to the acoustic-based “Solitude” just ahead of the epic B-side opener.
And speaking of openers, “Mountain” begins the procession with an immediate sense of quiet intimacy backed by subtle movement. Groove. Koglek‘s voice is in layers, more comfortable than it’s been, and more dynamic in its reach, seeming to sway to the rhtyhm even in its melodic bask. When it takes off, “Mountain” does so with an acoustic strum included, and while it gets heavy in the sense of its presence as it climbs, it never loses its sense of patience, because the patience is the point. It’s not about getting to some payoff, but about the entire journey being 
undertaken, on the band’s part as well as the listeners, and in the finer details of the performances — Merwald‘s snare work alone, for goodness’ sake — a character is revealed that’s unlike anything else that was happening in the underground at the time. They follow that launch with “Tao Nr. 43,” adapted from the classic Chinese text Tao Te Ching, and reveal the fullness of the fuzz and breadth of tone for the first time in a steady, non-aggressive roll that breaks after two minutes to a quiet part before surging back with a freedom-rock verse that’s holds its melody in the guitar, and the two-minute “Did Êl It,” a speedier blast of an instrumentalist shuffle that reminds you they are foremost a rock band, capable of on-the-mark precision even as they embrace notions of drift in new ways.
Like “Peace, Brothers & Sisters,” the nine-minute “Love” is a statement unto itself, which is somewhat ironic since it’s mostly instrumental. Rasthofer‘s bass underscores the meander of the guitar and the complementary jazz of the drums, assuring the song moves forward across its first few minutes — but again, listening isn’t about the expectation of some swell to come so much as being in the moment with the song as it’s happening. “Love” is peaceful on the whole, but in as much foreshadow as in itself, as it moves to its midpoint it reveals the progression it will use as a build across its second half, with Koglek‘s guitar leading the way. This procession grows gradually heavier until and as the spoken vocals arrive, not so much verses as an epistolary, imploring at the end, “So reach out, reach out, get a hand brothers and sisters/Grow on your kindness, love, harmony and peace/Empty yourselves of everything, gain in losing, thrive in your freedom/I tried, but I’m sure you will.” They jam and push the crescendo to its limit and leave off, letting “Solitude” provide space ahead of the arrival of the ritual bowl at the start of “Peace, Brothers & Sisters!” and the following invariable the apex of the album, if not the actual end.
Glorious, jammy ebbs and flows play out across the extended span, the band delving into and through parts as though carried by the music, here hitting hard, there wandering only to find their way back for the final push. It is beautiful, and again, free. A righteous breakout, largely unparalleled in or out of Colour Haze‘s discography. A genuine landmark on a genuinely landmark record. And where normally that might make “Flowers” something of an afterthought, which I kind of think it was meant to be anyhow — at least an epilogue — the return to ground at the end of Colour Haze is refreshing in its purpose, calling to mind some of what Los Sounds de Krauts got up to in terms of intricacy, but keeping the warmth of its surroundings. They push it to a head twice and finish locked into the groove; clean, clear, on the path. If it’s an afterthought, it’s one highlighting aspects that would continue to take shape as signature elements of their sound.
Colour Haze is not the only arrival-point in the band’s catalog, but it was the first time the band showed what they could do with the growth they’d undertaken to that point at such a level. It is organically refined in a way that would sound performative and hollow from almost any other outfit, but from Colour Haze, just makes you want to believe a better world is possible. I still feel like I’m learning from it what heavy music can be.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Most of this week has been pretty miserable. Monday and Tuesday were just a total wash. No-go. Tuesday I managed to put that post up saying I was sick, and holy crap, I wasn’t kidding. I’d been down since about last Thursday, really Wednesday into Thursday, and since then it’s been rough going. I’ve gotten better over the course of this week, but honestly, yesterday sucked too because I kept The Pecan home from school Wednesday (she’d been tired and thus less able to regulate, seemed to benefit from the day) and kind of wore myself out from that. My stomach has been in pretty constant pain for the last week-plus at this point. Eating has been very difficult. So has sleeping.
I stopped taking the medication I was on a week ago and as that’s been leaving my system, that seems to have brought some alleviation, but for real, The Patient Mrs. made me a one-egg omelette like half an hour ago and I had to go reeeaaal slow to get through it. I’ve been falling asleep in the mornings after school dropoff and if I went back to bed right now, I’d be out in no time. I’m trying to be cognizant of hydrating, but that’s been hard as well. I think I probably need a few more days before I’m back to whatever passes for normal in my mid-40s.
It was so sad last week when I walked out of In the Key of Doom. Even as I was telling myself I’d try again the next day and not have to miss Greenleaf’s first New York show ever, not have to miss seeing Tommi and Arvid and the guys. What a fucking bummer. I console myself with the fact that I’ll see them in Vegas in January for Planet Desert Rock Weekend, but still. That was a really, really sad one to miss. I won’t even talk about Emissions From the Monolith in Ohio this weekend, since that wasn’t going to be possible anyhow.
So, feeling like garbage has been the central activity for the last eight days or so. By the afternoons, I’m crushed. Even after an activity as benign as taking a shower, I need to sit down. I am tired, weak, and again, in pretty steady discomfort. If it continues through Monday, I’ll go to the doctor and see what he says. If it goes away — and I am better now than I was last Saturday, so I feel like that’s how it’s trending, if slowly — then so much the better.
Next week has more stuff slated — a Whispers premiere Monday, a Steak review in there somewhere, a Red Eye session video premiere, etc. — so worth staying tuned for that. I’ve got that Buzzard interview that I’ve been trying to edit and man, it’s a monster. I don’t know that I’ll get there next week, but it’s worth trying. Was a good chat and I’d hate to see it not get used. Kind of depends on how I’m feeling, I guess.
But that’s what’s been going on on my end. I’ve written as much as I could — time’s short, energy’s low, but today got to four posts — and will continue to employ that ethic until such time as I am unable or unwilling to make it happen the way I want to. I’ve started thinking about year-end stuff as well. So much there for album of the year, I wish I could put the poll up now, but it’s too early.
I’m gonna leave it there and punch out for a few, try to rest a bit before school pickup later on. Thanks for reading and have a great and safe weekend if you can amid the sundry horrors. Fucking nazis. I just want to live long enough to see some accountability for these vermin.
FRM.
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