NACH UNS DIE FLUT

Okey, let me say this first! Despite my two lonely stars I don't think this album was bad and I think it's underrated. Though could I understand that the interest for this album isn't big at all at a prog forum, that is understandable. "Nach uns die flut" is Novalis' eleventh and final album and it was released 1985, twenty-nine years ago and twelve years after the band's debut album. We could really say that this was a productive band.

Beside the drummer Hartwig Biereichel, the guitarist Detlef Job and the keyboardist Lutz Rahn who have played in the band since the start this album features Hinrich Schneider on bass and a new singer in Ernst Herzner. Fred Mühlböck was gone and then I of course is curious about the new star and my opinion about him is good. It was a great vocalist they found in Herzner, he isn't the problem here. The album is longer than every other Novalis record and I like the cover too.

Musically this is quite well produced German rock with no intentions to do innovative music. The songs are nice, the instruments are played just as they should but the band had lost their soul. For example do I consider Rahn's keyboards one key ingredient but here I almost don't notice them. The songs are short and here is there no "epics". Well I love the German language so a song i German can nearly never be bad. I like "...und wenn die Gitarren brennen"(6/10) and "Heute oder nie"(6/10) rocks the house. "Im neonlicht der nacht" is another one(6/10) that I think holds a high standards. Otherwise is the music very average and mediocre. Perhaps I think this album was better than Sterntaucher but why didn't Novalis end their carreer with "Neumond". I think they should have done that.

There are still some musical aspects that are similar to the Novalis I like and that together with a relatively even record makes this a two and not a one star record!

To sum Novalis deed I would say this. Novalis did seven impressing albums of which six are very good and four are amazing. I'd rank them all in this way:

1. Brandung(5/5) 1977 2. Vielleicht bist du ein clown(5/5) 1978 3. Sommerabend (5/5) 1976 4. Novalis (5/5) 1975

5. Flossenengel(4/5) 1979 6. Bannished bridge (4/5) 1973 7. Augenblicke (3/5) 1980

8. Neumond (3/5) 1982 9. Bumerang (3/5) 1984 10. Nach uns die flut (2/5) 1985 11. Sterntaucher (2/5) 1983