BATTLEMENT

If you like GENESIS i'm sure you'll like this record. NEUSCHWANSTEIN's vocalist sounds very similar to Peter Gabriel and the use of flute, acoustic guitar and synths does bring to mind the early period of GENESIS. There's a beautiful picture on the back of the album cover of a Grecian lake in mist.

"Loafer Jack" is an upbeat song while my favourite tune on here is "Ice With Dwale". It opens with acoustic guitar and flute with drums and keys following to create a full sound. The guitar is good 3 minutes in. "Intruders And The Punishment" is uptempo with beautiful mellotron waves coming and going throughout. The keys and drums dominate. "Beyond The Bugle" has more great mellotron and a really nice full sound 3 minutes in. And check out the bass playing ! Nice.

"Battlement" features the bass player on vocals but he doesn't sing until 4 minutes in. "Midsummer Day" was recorded with these other songs, but never released with the original album because they felt it was too commercial sounding. This song is a bonus track on the edition I have. There is some JETHRO TULL-like flute melodies on this one. This is an excellent tune and it's quite uplifting 6 minutes in. "Zartlicher Abschied" is an instrumental with acoustic guitar, flute, drums and lots of keys.

As much as I enjoyed this record it really doesn't eclipse too many of my other GENESIS sounding albums that I own. Yes it's excellent but not essential in my opinion.