Here is a small irony of German rock: Operation, one of the heaviest, most British-sounding hard-rock albums of its year, came out on Ohr — the label of cosmic Krautrock, home to Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel and Amon Duul. On a roster of space explorers, Birth Control were the ones plugging in a Hammond and a fuzzed-out guitar and playing like Deep Purple. Their second album is a vast leap over the debut, the record where they became a serious progressive group, and it remains one of their very best.

The short version

Their second album, released in May 1971 on Ohr; six tracks, forty-two minutes, all of them long except one. This was the final release by the original line-up: Bruno Frenzel on guitar and vocals, Reinhold Sobotta on organ, Bernd Koschmidder on bass, and Bernd Noske on drums and lead vocals. Frenzel took creative control and is credited as the writer of every track. The music is heavy progressive rock in the British mould, and the standouts are immediate: the organ-driven opener Stop Little Lady, the anti-war single The Work Is Done, and the eleven-minute, orchestrated closer Let Us Do It Now. Sobotta would leave the band after this record.

The odd band on Ohr

Ohr existed to promote the new German underground, and its catalogue is a roll-call of cosmic and electronic pioneers — the first Tangerine Dream albums, Ash Ra Tempel, Klaus Schulze, and more. Birth Control fit none of that. Where their label-mates were reaching for the stars, this band had far more in common with Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Atomic Rooster: heavy guitar riffs, thundering rhythm, and a great deal of Hammond organ. Operation is probably the least typical album Ohr ever released, and that is part of its charm. It also explains why a much bigger label, CBS, would soon pick the band up. This is emphatically not Krautrock in the Can or Amon Duul sense; it is British-style organ-and-guitar heavy rock made in Berlin, and made very well.

The sound

A vast improvement on the debut — more refined, more powerful, more focused. The Deep Purple influence is everywhere, and nowhere more than in Sobotta’s organ, which channels Jon Lord so closely you would think he had taken private lessons: grinding, classically tinged, and central to the whole record. Frenzel’s guitar supplies the riffs and the long solos the band were known for, Noske’s voice is authoritative and increasingly nuanced, and the rhythm section drives hard. What lifts it above straight heavy rock is the progressive reach — several tracks open out into extended, symphonic-leaning stretches, and the closer goes fully orchestral. It is deep, warm, organ-soaked heavy prog, played with confidence the debut only hinted at.

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The songs

Stop Little Lady opens the album as a hard rocker dominated by Sobotta’s stellar organ, and it became a lasting favourite. Just Before the Sun Will Rise leans more symphonic, one of the tracks that shows why Birth Control were more progressive than most of their heavy-rock peers. The Work Is Done is the album’s single and one of its high points — a hard-edged anti-war protest song, catchy and political, aimed at the Vietnam conflict. Flesh and Blood is the short one; Pandemonium keeps the heavy momentum. And Let Us Do It Now closes the record across eleven minutes, taking a fully orchestrated, string-laden, psychedelic direction that sets it apart from everything else here — the band at their most ambitious, and for many the best thing on the album.

Reception and legacy

Operation is consistently rated among Birth Control’s finest, usually just behind Hoodoo Man, and it was the album that established them as a progressive band to reckon with rather than a promising debut act. Its success on Ohr, unusual as the fit was, helped move them up to CBS for the run of albums that followed. The original line-up would not survive it — Sobotta’s departure began the long series of changes on the organ stool — but the template was set: heavy, organ-driven, riff-powered progressive rock with a protest streak and a taste for the epic. Everything that made Hoodoo Man their breakthrough a year later is already here, sharpened and ready.

The verdict

Essential, and neck-and-neck with Hoodoo Man for the title of best Birth Control album — a fine place to start. Come for organ-soaked British-style heavy prog with real ambition and a genuine anti-war anthem, not for cosmic Krautrock, whatever the label on the spine suggests. Play Stop Little Lady, The Work Is Done and Let Us Do It Now. Then Hoodoo Man for the breakthrough that followed, the self-titled debut for where it began, and Deep Purple or Uriah Heep for the heavy-Hammond world this belongs to. The great outlier on a cosmic label, and the album where Birth Control got serious.

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