OUT OF THE ASHES

Pancake is an obscure symphonic prog band coming from Germany releasing 3 albums in the '70's. If first one was more towards rock with some Camel influences here and there , on their second release from 1977 named Out of the ashes they manage to come with a diffrent aproch of the music and the sound is now more like Eloy from that period or Pink Floyd in places, but aswell I can trace a lot of Gentle Giant similarities on couple of pieces. For ex the opening track named Painted Rush Hour is a GG clone, the same aproach, manner of composing, arraangements remind me of GG, anyway a good piece, after this tune, the album goes more on spacey atmosphere not far from Eloy and Pink Floyd in places like Rainbow Suite. Aswell the band has a lot of instrumental passages , to show that they are capable to compose complicated pieces that worth intrest of prog listners. The music is ok, nothing really ground breaking, like on Eloy or Pink Floyd (that era), but is a pleasent journey for sure overall. The voice of Rainer Rohm is ok, typical for this kind of music, he did a good job , but the drumer is the main attraction here Hand Derer (who later will join Anyone's Daugher) together with the keyboard player excellent musicians. The album was released on CD by already famous Garden of delight and even this way the band is still unknown to many, I simply can't understant why this band is so underrated here on PA, and this album and their next one are fairly good examples of good music from Germany in late '70's, I mean no vote, no reviews since mine, starange enough. So, a good album who desearve 3 stars for sure. The cover art is great.