MARBURG

I have been passionately in love with the debut album Marburg by German Symphonic Prog band Pell Mell ever since i discovered it in a used record shop in 1988. A rarity for my native Canada, the band being virtually unknown in North America even back in the day. Not surprising, really, and no insult to the group, as they were musically "too good" for the North American market, their brilliant, at times classically influenced sound more suitable to Europe.

All members of the band are exemplary musicians as evidenced by some of the most wonderful symphonic prog ever done by anybody. The band have an inimitable way of combining their playing styles, but never far from a classical base on this album. (brilliant violinist Thomas Schmidt even leads the band at one point in a rendition of Smetana's "The Moldau".) And singer Rudolf Schoen has a way of singing uniquely his own.

What i like the most about this record is the way everything fits together so well-no single member goes on an egotistical bent to drown any other musician out, and in their instrumentation (violin, guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, recorder) the result is quality in all departments. All instrumentalists shine on Marburg, yet, the singer is important, as well. Something uniting Pell Mell in all this fantastic musical interplay is a definite early seventies atmosphere-you can sense that in Marburg. Everybody keeps your interest all the way through each number, whether with vocal or in instrumental passages.

I have never heard any of the other records by this band, but am convinced that Marburg was a hard act to follow, it being a winner in so many departments.

This excellent record is due five stars, no less. I can't think of another band that does things quite like this with this instrumentation-my advice is to start running pell mell to get Pell Mell's Marburg!