NEXT STOP VERTIGO

Nice German discovery from late-00's, coming from the Ruhr valley, and featuring Sebastian Brennert on keyboards/vocals, Michael Kuchenbecker on keyboards, Jacques Moch on guitars, Matthias Hommel on bass and Carsten Dannert on drums.The first album of the band ''Next Stop Vertigo'' saw the light in 2010 on Progressive Promotionc Records.

The band themselves claim to mix the complexity with accesibility in Progressive Rock forms and that is pretty much what is going on in ''Next Stop Vertigo''.Well-written, fresh and passionate ideas transform into well-arranged, fairly accesible but also very demanding musicianship with strong vintage influences but always performed under a very modern attitude.Invertigo's music contains strong melodies, sensitive and very expressive vocals (non-accented by the way) and dynamic rhythmic parts.Still all the compositions are quite long to offer plenty of twists and turns, demanding instrumental passages and solos, filled with lots of piano, big symphonic synthesizers, sudden breaks and even retro-sounding textures with organ and Mellotron.A bit of MAGIC PIE, a bit of MILLENIUM, a bit of SUBSIGNAL and a bit of SPOCK'S BEARD combined determine the band's style.The 12-min. epic ''Special'' really holds all of these elements and is the absolute highlight of this release.

Very good German semi-Symphonic/Neo Progressive Rock with a modern approach and a really cool atmosphere overall.Strongly recommended, this is definitely a band to keep an eye on...3.5 stars.