LABYRINTH

I don't know much about this band, but it seems likely that guitarist Martin Schneider- Weldert had some sort of relationship with band singer Marion Weldert. The fact he's gone on this, the band's second and final album, probably means something happened to that relationship. Maybe not, and don't quote me but it makes sense.

The band has also changed labels, from Heute to Ohrwurm Records, which I also don't know much about but a quick check tells me they were issuing mostly electronica music at the time. Neither label appears to have been very big, and frankly this band doesn't make sense embedded in either label's catalog. In any case there seems to have been a very conscious shift away from progressive music between the band's first and second albums. Makes sense given the times (mid-80s).

Singer Marion Weldert is much more prominent on this record than the first, and she has also switched to singing in English rather than her native German. The music is also considerably more commercial than the first record with shorter tracks more vocally focused, simple rhythms and plenty of guitar arpeggios on songs like "Out of Sight" and "Gipsy's Campsite". Drummer Jürgen Schiaschter has also replaced Christoph Imler and his style is pure arena-rock. The guitar and drum work on songs like "Lass Mich Aus" are in more of the Neue Deutsche Welle style than the more symphonic structures on the band's debut record. There's also the obligatory rock ballad ("No More to Say"), a languid and partially acoustic folksy number ("Harvest") that does sound a bit like the original band, and a bombasticly spacious arena rock number with "Bygone Song".

The second half of the album is closer to progressive rock than the first, but honestly this is not really any more progressive or symphonic than most of the rest of the music being pushed out in the early and mid eighties. The one bright spot comes from Peter Laubmeier's piano, which is as exquisite and beautiful here as on the first record, particularly on "Gutes Nachtlied" where Weldert reverts to German for the vocal parts.

This album has never been reissued on CD as far as I know, and it isn't all that easy to find today. There's probably good reason why the new generation of progressive labels have avoided remastering and re-releasing it, mostly because it really isn't all that great of an album. The music is pretty decent, but nothing that a hundred other bands weren't already doing at the time.

I can't say as this record is worth seeking out unless you are a real fan of the band or just a curious collector with deep pockets. That said, the music is decent enough that two stars seems to be an undeserved insult, so in consideration of the relative standards of the time period in which it was recorded I'll go with three stars, but only a mild recommendation.

peace