If I call Colour Haze‘s 2001 Monster Zero Records release Ewige Blumenkraft (reissue review here) underrated, understand that’s only because I don’t see people freaking out about a 25-year-old album on the internet today, like, right now, all the time. Because I genuinely believe that the Munich trio’s fifth full-length is the kind of record that if everyone heard it, the world’s asshole contingent would dissipate and peace would reign. Perhaps it’s appropriate the title translates, roughly, to “flowerpower forever.”

Ewige Blumenkraft is neither perfect nor trying to be. Above all, it is natural in its sound and whether rocking or exploring or both, guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, bassist Philipp Rasthofer and drummer Manfred Merwald were pushing themselves and each other to find new facets of their sound, new pockets of persona. The fuzz runs thick across the 10-song/74-minute span marked by 19-minute closer “Elektrohasch,” which in two years’ time would be the name of the label Koglek would found to release the band’s music.

So things were changing, the sound was changing, evolving into something beyond desert rock. By 2001, the European heavy underground was well entrenched, with bands like Dozer and 13eaver and 35007 beginning also to come into their own and take the stoner rock of the late ’90s to someplace new. It was the same with Colour Haze, and Ewige Blumenkraft was another stage in their finding themselves musically. Its edges are rough and its production is barebones, but it’s got two powerhouse hooks up front in opener “Freakshow” and “Almost Gone,” and more than a few fuzzblasters throughout, whether it’s “Smile II” and “Smile I,” yes, presented in that order, or the swaggering “Reefer.” They even cover Colour Haze! Wait, what?

Much of the album works in a back and forth between longer and shorter tracks. As regards sequencing, this is a way to emphasize dynamics, particularly since structural changes coincide with those in runtime for pieces like “Almost Gone” with its doo-doo-doo in the chorus and the flatten-you-until-it’s-time-to-jam “Smile II,” and at the end of side B of the 2LP, one finds “House of Rushammon,” reworked and mellowed from its appearance on the prior semi-official 1998 sophomore outing Seven (discussed here).

This is emblematic of how Colour Haze were shifting in terms of sound more broadly. Yes, they could riff out with the best of them, and their attention to detail in terms of tone and sound bled at this point into even the most straightforward shove they proffered, but as they began to show on 2000’s CO2 (discussed here), there was a burgeoning patience in their approach that even three years earlier didn’t exist. They were learning how to be themselves in music, how to embody different ideas and moods, and that still resonates through Ewige Blumenkraft, in the pioneering mellow-heavy build of “House of Rushammon,” in the just-under-10-minute “Freedom,” in the mid-tempo, split-the-difference-and-follow-the-riff-into-the-breakout “Outside” and of course in the side-D-consuming finisher as well.

Every song starts with guitar. Sometimes that’s feedback, as on “Goddess” or “Reefer” or “Smile I,” or it can be the distortion wall at the head of “Freedom” or the quieter noodling that starts off “Smile II” with Merwald‘s drums, or the standalone part at the outset of “Outside,” “House of Rushammon” or “Elektrohasch,” the latter particularly Hendrixian, warm and sweet in its tone. Colour Haze were well able to enact a build in their songs by the time Ewige Blumenkraft came about, and to hear them employ different structures across this album’s span is indicative of the progressive intent that would continue to emerge in the years to come.

Speaking of emergences, among the most crucial here as regards the overarching progression of Colour Haze is just how much Ewige Blumenkraft casts itself in a ‘heavy-hippie’ aesthetic. A quarter-century later, this ‘vibe’ can be felt in everything from music festivals to metal records, but at the time that kind of cultural engagement wasn’t nearly so pervasive. Woodstock became a commercial property in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, it was less cool. But Colour Haze helped shape a way forward for music to be heavy in presence, tone and groove without the chestbeating aggression of ’90s nü/alternative-metal or commercial hard rock. They weren’t the only band doing it, but their work was among the most important, and it’s an influence that continues to spread today as one of their greatest accomplishments.

Admittedly, some of that is narrative in the context of what the band has done since, but Ewige Blumenkraft radiates peace in a way that Colour Haze would continue to explore and develop on subsequent offerings. It’s there in the sound too, palpable to the listener and a key facet of the experience overall. Unless you go in expecting grindcore, nobody’s coming out of a Colour Haze record feeling angry. And that doesn’t mean this material lacks energy, either. Even in the farthest reaches of “Elektrohasch” — hell, perhaps most of all then as they work their way toward a payoff for both the song and the album as a whole following a stop and reset around the 11-minute mark — these songs are as vibrant as they are immersive, and that’s something that built up in Colour Haze‘s approach as documented across their first five albums and began to really take hold as 1999’s Periscope (discussed here) gave way to CO2 and Ewige Blumenkraft at the beginning of the procession of landmarks to follow throughout and beyond the aughts.

And that’s kind of been hanging over this catalog series up to now, that succession, but shouldn’t be read as me saying in a backhanded way that what Ewige Blumenkraft achieved on its own isn’t worthwhile. I’ve had “Almost Gone” stuck in my head for the last week, and this has only been to the benefit of my days. At the time of their release — and Ewige Blumenkraft was reissued through Elektrohasch in 2014 — each of these records to-‘date’ has been the furthest step in the ongoing growth of the band, and though CO2 and Ewige Blumenkraft are tied together in terms of the songwriting and stylistic goals that the band seemed to be working toward, that does not negate that evolution in the slightest. This is essential listening, within the Colour Haze discography and without.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

I’m going to try to keep this short. It’s later — standard 5:30AM wakeup, busted out about 600 words of the above before The Pecan got up an hour later, then did dropoff at school and hit the weed store and the deli with The Patient Mrs., came home with my dispo vape and bounty of gummies and her egg sandwich, had breakfast (not weed; apple and peanut butter, pretty standard these days) showered and got my shit together as much as I ever do; the hour’s drive to and from school means it’s 11:30AM now and I have about two hours and 10 minutes until I need to make that trip again — and as I have all week, I feel a little more pressed for time than I might otherwise. That is a new reality to which I continue to adjust. This is the third week of the school year. Yesterday I had to remind myself it’s still September. Mid-September at that.

On that note, if you’re at Ripplefest Texas this weekend, please know I’m maddeningly jealous. Have fun, be safe, enjoy good music and company.

We have stuff on all weekend, and then next week is my 22nd wedding anniverary — 09.25.04. As of the 28th we’ll have been together for 29 years, which since I’m 44 turning 45 next month is an increasingly significant percentage of my life. Coming on two-thirds. I don’t think we’re doing presents — as of this morning the discussion of money was that it all needed to go to The Pecan’s birthday and Xmas, and I assume we’re abiding by that for at least the next week — but at least the plan is to spend some time together hanging out, which, honestly, feels pretty special in itself in these busy days.

Next week is pretty open coverage-wise but I have a couple reviews I want to do, for Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree and Iron Jinn, specifically, and I have a premiere set for Philly’s Seismic next Friday that I’m looking forward to and hope you do as well.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Keep your head up despite the bullshit if you can. There’s genocide and fascism and all kinds of rampant arguments against humanity, but humans made Colour Haze too. It’s not all terrible, even if most of it is.

And don’t forget to stay hydrated.

FRM.

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Tags: Colour Haze, Colour Haze Ewige Blumenkraft, Ewige Blumenkraft, Germany, Monster Zero Records, Munich

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2026 at 11:50 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.