SOLAR MUSIC - LIVE

Well for my 1200th review, I had to make it a five stars, so I delayed my review until now. And what an album this one is! A live one at that and probably one of the five best ever. Grobschnitt was always more of a live band than a studio one, and one of my few regrets is that I never got to see them in concert. I really hope someday, a DVD will come out of this album or that era in general because they must've put many prog bands to shame and even Alice Cooper's Nightmares would've respected this. The leader is the tall, lanky (Zappa-looking ) figure of Eroc, who wrote most of the lyrics.

The grand thing about this album is that most of the tracks appearing on this live album are released for the first time and they are top-notch! This true for all tracks except the three Solar Music tracks and even then, there is major changes compared to the studio version. The ambiances and electronic doodlings on Food Sicore evoking whale love-calls is simply ghastly melting so well in the atmospheres of the group. Grandiose but much more to come. Mulheim Special is a very strong track and the writing is oh so inspired. Otto Pankrock is really the band melting into one single soul! Golden Mist is more of a jam (all of those tracks were subject to slight jamming as this is a important characteristic of the band: improvisation) and slightly less interesting but let's wait for that DVD!. Of course, what to say of Solar Music itself. This Oeuvre was really the centre part of their concert and could last up to one hour (the studio version was around 33 min over two vinyls).

Grobschnitt in concert is much more at ease than in the studio and had their own sound. Much acclaimed Jumbo and Rockpommel's Land albums were sounding much like Yes or Genesis would but live these guys sounded like themselves, only the KB player reminding you sometimes of P F 's Rick Wright. The bonus track called The Missing 13 Minutes where they chose to jam for the presentation of the different band members allowing them to do a solo (more of it you mean) and is not really that essential for fans to feel obligated to buy the new version. But this should never be ground for not getting this absolutely superb album, which is definitely a deserted garden pleasure with the stereo blasting it away LOUD and proud.

Get this you progheads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!