Long time no post.

Alpha Saloon

Today’s band is a German group called Alpha Saloon whose sound consists of a strange menagerie of styles. They label themselves as an “Ultra Pop” band. The musical philosophy behind this label as I understand it is that every song is an independent entity with an entirely unique personality. Ultra Pop songs are allowed to develop on their own terms, meaning that each song is not judged by how it sounds in relation to the songs before and after it on a track list nor is it judged by how well it jives with the album as a whole.

This is an interesting philosophy to compose your music by and it works well to a certain degree. Granted a band is always going to have a certain feel to them and so are certain albums, so you can never really remove that element of sameness that will inevitably remain. Even the instruments that a band uses will create an air repetition unless they completely change their instrumental setup from song to song on the same album. I think the idea behind Ultra Pop is to create as much variety as possible and overcome that feeling of monotony.

Even before reading anything about Alpha Saloon, when I first started listening to their music I got the distinct impression that they were attempting to mix things up and create a diverse listening experience. Take for example “Modern Times, Modern People, Modern Talking” and “Uber German,” two of the last tracks off of their album Hello Weltgeist!. The first song has a distinctly modern punk rock feeling with a noticeable electronic and reggae influences creeping in. The second song sounds more like something you would hear from an 80′s rock band. There are definite similarities between the two songs, particularly the lead singer’s distinct voice, but I would say that they are different enough to say that this is a successful voyage into the depths of Ultra Pop. So Hello Weltgeist! is probably worth checking out if you’re into catchy tunes and a little variety.

Purchase Hello Weltgeist! by Alpha Saloon

Alpha Saloon – Modern Times, Modern People, Modern Talking
Alpha Saloon – Uber German