BUMERANG

I read somewhere that Novalis were forced to do this album quickly because they lost a lawsuit against the record company and had to deliver one more album than they had thought. I saw the band live at the time before I actually got the album and they still could deliver a great gig, but it was clear that the new songs couldn't keep up with the older ones. The band continued what they had started, slowly, already on Brandung and Clown, namely a conscious movement away from longer more epic songs to shorter pop songs. The new German "Neue Deutsche Welle" music at the time, which had started off inspired by punk and British new wave, had become dangerously close to the very cheesy old German "Schlager" pop with superficial lyrics mostly about love. On the previous records between Augenblicke and Sterntaucher, Novalis had already flirted with direct emotional but "soft" lyrics and corresponding sounds and melodies, which came over as authentic and mostly sympathetic, but with Bumerang they definitely landed on the wrong side, sounding rather cliched and cheesy. There is nothing of interest to a prog listener here, and even letting proggy expectations aside, I don't find anything special on this album. Some of the pop melodies and lyrics are even rather embarrassing. As usually, there is a handful of instrumentals on this album, which don't hurt much. "Ueber Stock und Stein" is the best and is at least closest to earn the description "rock", but even this one has some rather annoying disco influences. This is an album I can do without.