Dies Irae - First (1971) (Reissue, Digipak, 2009)

Playing locally in and around clubs in southern Germany, Switzerland and France since 1968 Dies Irae, consisting of Rainer Wahlman, lead vocals/harmonica, Harald Thoma, guitars/vocals, Joachim Shiff, bass and Andreas Cornelius on drums were finally discovered by the now long defunct Hamburg record label PILZ in early 1971. They were were a progressive psychedelic/blues freak band with a darker side from Saarbrucken, Germany who released just one LP and one single as well as appearing on the PILZ sampler, Heavy Christmas, in 1971 before splitting up in 1972 as a result of musical differences to form two offshoot bands, Lucy Gang and Green Wave.

Not to be confused by several metal bands which have used the name Dies Irae which literally translates to Day Of Wrath which is the title of a Latin hymn which refers to the day of judgement before the throne of God where the saved are delivered from evil and the unsaved are cast into the eternal flames, the original Dies Irae has been often compared to Black Sabbath's early sound on their LP "First" for PILZ because of a guitar/harmonica heavy blues sound with lyrical references to the occult although the vocals were far more trippier and out there. Extended psychedelic electronic collages and free form jams were also included on the sole album.

Despite recording just one single album the band created some waves in the summer of 1971 when most German radio stations refused to play anything off their album because of controversial LSD induced lyrics with sacreligious conotations. A wacked out, off the deep end video, filmed in 8mm was, however, aired on German TV and was enough to gain them limited underground status to this day. An attempt was made in the early 90s to reform the original band again and several live tracks appeared on a live CD, " Saarock Live ", recorded at a local club in Saarbrucken called Le Garage which also featured several other bands. In 1993 the band was disbanded once again, this time slipping into Krautrock folklore forever, although their single album "First " remains in demand in CD form amongst fans of heavy prog .