BANISHED BRIDGE

Dynamic and full of twists and turns. A remarkable achievement. This one features some of the sickest organ tones you'll ever hear. Really powerful and with vibrato used beautifully. Luitz Rahn is just a monster on this one! Frankly, I don't think anything else I've heard by them brings forth this same fire and intensity. While there is discipline here, the bass and drum work of Schünzel & Biereichel gets very busy at times, and far surpasses the often more mid 70s Floyd approach used on the next two albums.

While I rank Sommerabend very highly, I don't think anything they ever did outshines this one. I've heard everything up through "Vieleicht bist Du ein Clown ?" and just don't hear the same kind of passion that comes through on this effort. The vocals work for me. They are *drenched* in reverb, very rough and distant. Somehow, they have a vibe that fits the album like a glove. The somewhat poor English translation doesn't particularly bother me, and I find the lyrics fairly easy to follow and determining what they are driving at to be fairly easy.

"Inside of me (inside of you)" has one of the most memorable main melodies in the history of prog, as far as I'm concerned. I don't mean just German prog, but prog worldwide. It is so good that I find it haunting. It is also virtually "out of the blue" to these ears. I cannot find a single reference for how they came up with it. Highly original. Perhaps classical music was referenced for some of the ideas here? But there is a twist to the ideas for melodies throughout this album that I find uniquely "Novalis" in rock history.