With their first, self-titled album for Liberty, The Petards from the state of Hessen in Germany had produced a real hit. The year 1969 meant for Klaus and Horst Ebert, Roger Waldmann and Arno Dittrich above all a wealth of appearances; at that time there was probably no band harder working in Germany than The Petards. In September 1969 producer Sigi Loch called the band back to Munich's Trixi Ton Studio to record the next album. And as one would expect from the band, the musicians came to the studio well prepared. Within five days, enough new songs were recorded to create four singles in addition to the new album. All the titles were written by the two Ebert brothers, who apparently never ran out of ideas. The musicians used whatever kind of tools the studio gave them: synthesizers, Mellotron and piano were skillfully integrated into the Petards sound. As with the previous albums, the band captivated with an enormous amount of variety and talent. Progressive rock, Krautrock - everything was in the Petards songs - and yet with less than four minutes of running time they remained deeply suitable for airplay. In early 1970 the new album 'Hitshock' was released on Liberty and continued the track of success of the four Hessians. For many people 'Hitshock' is the most mature and best produced album of the four from Schrecksbach. Fans and critics agreed. In April 1970, The Petards made it into the arts pages! Director Charles Lang had selected the band from 70 applicants and invited them to the Bremen Theatre. There they took part in the play 'Was ihr wollt', freely adapted from Shakespeare ('Twelfth Night', or 'What You Will'). All arrangements were made by the musicians, some titles were rewritten. Unfortunately no recordings have been preserved. The play was not a great success, but The Petards got off well with the critics, and of course this also meant a good promotion for their new album.
