THE PUZZLE

SSTTGD were formed in 2004 by keyboard player and saxophonist Marek Arnold (Toxic Smile, UPF, Flaming Row, Cyril) and drummer Ulf Reinhardt. With Andreas Gemeinhardt on guitars, Heiko Rehm on bass and three singers (Lars K'hler, Ronny Gruber and Anne Trautmann), they released this their debut album in 2006. It won some major awards in their home country of Germany and it isn't hard to see why, as this is progressive in its very truest sense, mixing and melding different styles to become progressive, metallic, melodic, hard rock and pop, often all in the same song. It is incredibly hard to pick out what makes this such a great album, whether it is the vocals, the melding and blending of styles, the shredding, or indeed total lack of guitar and drums at all at time, but eventually I think I managed to pin it down to just one instrument, the piano.

The piano is at the very heart of what is happening, and there are times when Marek is playing against riffed guitars, something that is incredibly unusual, as when a keyboard player is involved like that he is generally using a synth. There are quite a few sections where Marek is holding his own, either with or without a singer also being involved, and then the band may move seamlessly into something that has a great deal of attack with Andreas showing that he is a fine guitarist while Marek moves into some different sounds. With male and female vocals, and the band throwing so many styles into the melting point, from late Seventies rock that sounds as if disco is coming back into fashion to metallic riffs: I am sure I even heard a didgeridoo at one point. Highly accessible, hugely enjoyable, this is a fun album that makes me smile each and every time I play it.