Agitation Free - Live ’74 (At the Cliffs of River Rhine) ($16.99)
Titles are arranged alphabetically with the latest additions highlighted in yellow.
Agitation Free - Live ’74 (At the Cliffs of River Rhine) ($16.99) 
Agitation Free - Malesch ($16.99)These are the 2008 remastered digipack reissues on SPV’s Revisited Records label of some classic Krautrock albums. Malesch (1972) was Agitation Free’s first, followed by 2nd (1973). They are notable for combining cosmic synth work with Middle Eastern motifs, the ethnic element more prominent on Malesch. The music features that typical Krautrock blend of extended psychedelic jams, laid-back attitude and grooves, and experimentation. The presence of acoustic guitars and bouzouki (more prominent on 2nd) emphasizes the easygoing nature of the music, along with Stefan Diez’s elegant guitar soloing, while occasional free-form passages keep things on the edge. It runs the gamut from pure Krautrock to prog rock and fusion. The band’s synthesist was Michael Hoenig, who later had brief collaborations with Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Manuel Gottsching; released the well-known Berlin School Departure from the Northern Wasteland, then moved to the U.S. to compose film and television scores. Malesch has a 15-minute bonus track plus a bonus Quicktime video. 2nd has a 7:42 bonus track.
Last was released posthumously in 1976, its three (two very long) tracks recorded at two concerts and in the studio. It is more cosmic and electronic than the earlier albums, closer to Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, and Yatha Sidra. This CD adds an 11-minute 1971 bonus track.
Live ’74 (At the Cliffs of River Rhine) was originally released in 1998 and contains a 1974 concert plus a 9-minute 1972 live bonus track. The 1974 concert has excellent sound and contains four tracks from 2nd plus one unreleased. This is considered the essential Agitation Free live recording.
Alias Eye - A Different Point of You ($8.99) A Different Point of You (2003) is the second album from a very good German neo-prog band that shares lead singer Philip Griffiths with the band Poor Genetic Material (see below). Philip’s father Martin was the singer for Beggars Opera, a Scottish early-70’s prog band. The music has some of the laid-back Pink Floyd atmosphere, also a bit of Kansas, Saga, and Spock’s Beard, and like the great 1970’s prog bands, the musician’s skills serve the song rather than a technical exercise. The CD is well recorded, quite arty and finely crafted. Because both Alias Eye and Poor Genetic Material rely heavily on Griffiths’ excellent voice, fans of one band will probably like the other as well. Alias Eye is a bit more mainstream than PGM, but the appeal is similar. Read reviews here.
Amon Düül II - Vortex ($16.99)
Amon Düül II - Pyragony ($16.99)
Amon Düül II - Hijack ($16.99)
Amon Düül II - Tanz der Lemminge ($16.99) These are the 2005-2008 remastered editions on Revisited Records. Each comes in a digipack with an enhanced booklet and liner notes, and most have several bonus tracks. Amon Düül II was one of the pioneering Krautrock bands. Even when singing in English, they were uniquely German, playing a light progressive style with avant-garde elements.
Yeti (1970) was Amon Düül II’s second album, originally a 2LP and now a 68-minute CD. It is a definitive Krautrock album, containing some structured songs but mostly long improvised psychedelic jams. Tanz der Lemminge (Dance of the Lemmings) followed in 1971, another 2LP now a 69-minute CD. It’s probably the best of their first three albums, after which the band started focusing more on structured songs and less on drugs. These two albums are definitely products of their time.
Wolf City (1973) was their fifth studio album and may be the best introduction to Amon Düül II for those coming from the symphonic prog side of things. The songs here are more concise, as opposed to the long improvisations of the earlier albums. An excellent and unique blend of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and psych-folk.
Vive La Trance (1974) was their sixth studio album and has four bonus tracks added. This album sees the band turning to more song-based structures and mostly shorter tracks, reining in their excessively avant-garde and psychedelic tendencies. It’s still unconventional enough to belong in the progressive realm, as even the more straightforward material tends to have a veneer of electronic or psychedelic effects.
Their seventh studio album Hijack (1974) is not one of their best, but despite some misfires, it’s not a bad listen. Lemmingmania (1975) was a compilation of the band’s shorter acid rock classics and included four tracks that had only been available on singles. This reissue adds four bonus tracks plus a bonus video.
Made In Germany (1975) was originally a double-LP; this CD contains all of it. This album is usually considered to be the last absolute classic in the Amon Düül II catalog. In a few short years, Amon Düül II had become a completely different band than the one that recorded their first album Phallus Dei. Made In Germany is a conceptual work, almost a musical, a tongue-in-cheek look at German history. It features solid songwriting that is uniquely German, with orchestrations, lovely vocals from Renate Knaup, and spacey instrumental breaks.
Pyragony or Pyragony X (1976) immediately faced mixed criticism from the press and the loyal Amon Düül II fanbase. Here Amon Düül II began to attempt more conventional symphonic prog, which fans of the early albums considered to be too commercial. Maybe if they had changed the name of the band at this point to Amon Düül III, these later albums would have been reviewed more even-handedly.
While Almost Alive (1977) and Only Human (1978) may be considered to be after the classic period of the band, prog fans more interested in symphonic rock than Krautrock or psych will probably like these more. The significant change is the addition of keyboardist/vocalist Stefan Zauner, who joined the band for their 1976 album Pyragony X. While Only Human is their most mainstream record, incorporating styles not typical of the Amon Düül II sound, it is also their most symphonic. It still manages to remain experimental, comical, and unique, sounding quite a bit like Zauner’s excellent Prism & Views solo album, recorded around the same time. The bonus tracks on both Almost Alive and Only Human are in the older Amon Düül II style. Zauner is in a guest role on Vortex (1981), which was an attempt by Chris Karrer to reform the band, and the only album they recorded in the 1980’s. While the reformation didn’t last, the album itself is successful.
Apogee - Mystery Remains ($15.99) 
Apogee - Sisyphos ($11.99) out-of-stock SALE!Arne Schäfer is the leader, along with keyboardist Ekkehard Nahm, of the German band Versus X (see below). Apogee is the solo vehicle for Schäfer, though on The Garden of Delights (2003, 70-minutes) he is assisted by Versus X drummer Uwe Völlmar, and in practice Apogee and Versus X sound pretty similar. Schäfer handles keyboards, guitars, and vocals. The five ambitious symphonic pieces on The Garden of Delights express Schäfer’s thoughts on the human race, conscience, and perception. Schäfer’s lyrics and vocal style are in the verbose Peter Hammill style, and there is a strong Van der Graaf Generator influence along with King Crimson and the darker side of Genesis. Apogee offer complex, sophisticated structures and musical themes, shifting atmospheres, airy acoustic and intense electric passages, enveloped by Mellotron (lots of Mellotron!), organ, and other keyboard sounds, and enhanced by subtle dissonances.
The Border of Awareness (1995, 76-minutes) and Sisyphos (1998, 64-minutes) are earlier albums in a similar style. On the Aftertaste (2006, 68-minutes) is not actually a new Apogee album but rather contains material recorded during the sessions for The Border of Awareness and Sisyphos.
The drums on Mystery Remains (2009, 69-minutes) are divided between Völlmar and new Versus X drummer Thomas Reiner. This album is not a departure in style except that the lyrics, though still verbose, flow more naturally as does the music itself. The sophisticated orchestrations are one of the things that distinguishes Apogee from Versus X, and they are very good here.
Argos - Argos ($15.99) This is the 2008 debut by a German band who have made what is probably the most British-sounding progressive rock record to come out of Germany. It is keyboard-dominated and 1970’s-styled, with vocals in English from a singer who sounds sort of like a cross between Peter Gabriel and Pye Hastings (not as talented a singer as either, but good enough). The 53-minute CD is divided into three sections that give a clue as to Argos’ influences: Part 1: Nursed by Giants, Part 2: Canterbury Souls, and Part 3: From Liverpool to Outer Space. Part 1 is primarily Genesis and Camel influenced. Part 2 is nearly self-explanatory; here we’re talking Caravan and Hatfield and the North. (One track is titled The Hat Goes North.) Part 3 implies a Beatles influence, though the music sounds closer to a later band such as Stackridge who themselves built on the Beatles foundation. Can we just say that Stackridge occurred to us before reading the band’s MySpace page, which surprisingly does mention Stackridge? Argos’ MySpace page lists other influences as well, of which Fruupp and England are also good references. One of the characteristics of much classic British prog is whimsy, which Argos have understood. This CD is highly enjoyable and the biggest surprise among Musea’s late 2008/early 2009 releases.
Arilyn - Alter Ego ($14.99)Tomorrow Never Comes (2002) is the 64-minute debut from a German band mixing rock, space rock, and progressive, with vocals in English as is de rigueur these days. Alter Ego (2007) is their third. On a couple tracks, Arilyn sound similar to RPWL, though not quite as luxuriant, while on other tracks they do a very good Hawkwind. Still other tracks carry on with the style found on their previous CDs, modern rock with spacey and progressive touches. The Arilyn website is here.
Blind Ego - Numb ($16.99) out-of-stock Blind Ego is the side project of RPWL guitarist Kalle Wallner. Among the musicians assisting on Mirror (2007, 61-minutes) are John Jowitt, John Mitchell, Clive Nolan, Paul Wrightson (Arena), and RPWL’s Yogi Lang. Mitchell and Nolan are present as vocalists only. Surprise, the album is guitar-oriented. There is David Gilmour/Pink Floyd influence (RPWL’s main influence), and most of the album is decent Floydian neo-prog, but the inclusion of some modern rock/metal means this falls a bit short of the average RPWL album. Read reviews at Prog4you and DPRP.
Wrightson is the sole lead vocalist on Numb (2009). Jowitt is on board again, along with Sebastian Harnack (Sylvan) and several other musicians, with Yogi Lang producing. While Mirror would have benefitted from more keys, Numb has none at all and is noticeably heavier. Read the review at DPRP.
Cinnamonia - The Scarlet Sea ($14.99) This 2002 release is by a German duo of a female singer and a male instrumentalist providing electronic textures, with help from three other musicians on electric and acoustic guitars. This is moody, low-key, atmospheric art-folk-pop, like a female David Sylvian, though not quite that melancholy. The English-language vocals sound a bit like Barbara Gaskin, and there are arrangements of two English traditional songs among the 11 tracks on this 59-minute CD.
Country Lane - Substratum ($15.99)This collectable progressive album was remixed for this CD reissue on Musea. As Musea describes it: “Country Lane’s only album was initially released in 1973. This Swiss band created an original rock music, mixing heavy influences such as Deep Purple with progressive ones such as The Nice and the other English progressive bands. Straight rock moments, dreamy atmospheres, and good English vocals are the basis of an excellent 70’s album, full of freshness and sincerity.”
Deyss - Vision in the Dark ($14.99)This Swiss band’s 1987 album, originally a 3-sided double-LP, was one of the best symphonic prog albums of that decade. Much of it is Marillion and IQ-inspired neo-prog (the vocalist is named “Jester”), but the 17-minute title suite is mostly-instrumental and harkens back to classic 1970’s prog.
Eloy - Visionary ($14.99) Eloy is Germany’s well-known symphonic space-rock band, who really hit their stride with Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes (1979) and Colours (1980), and peaked on Planets (1981) and Time to Turn (1982). While they may have been influenced by Pink Floyd, Eloy became a reference to which other prog bands could be compared. In simple terms, they combine the symphonic progressive and space rock styles like no one else.
In celebration of Eloy’s 40th anniversary, founder/guitarist Frank Bornemann returned to the studio to create the band’s first studio album in 10 years: Visionary (2009). Bornemann’s goal was to recreate the vintage sound of their most popular period. To that end, he assembled a lineup featuring members of Eloy’s past. Time was spent recording at world-renowned Horus Sound Studios in Hannover, Germany. Actually owned by Bornemann, it is the place where the classic Eloy sound was created. This is the U.S. edition, which comes in a jewel case with a 16-page booklet. The CD includes a video entitled The Making of Visionary.
Eroc - Changing Skies ($16.99) 
Eroc - 2 ($16.99)These are the latest remastered digipack editions. Eroc (Joachim Ehrig) was the drummer for Grobschnitt, leaving that band in 1983. But he was much more than a drummer, adding electronics to Grobschnitt’s live shows and having a successful solo career, releasing the albums Eroc 1 (1975, 54:54), Eroc 2 (1976, 67:30), Eroc 3 (1979, 79:10), Eroc 4 (1982, 79:10), and Changing Skies (1986, 79:10). The times shown are for these CD editions, which contain a huge number of bonus tracks.
The music on his first two outings is full of electronic effects and musical cut-ups that Eroc created for Grobschnitt’s live shows. Some are sound collages, others lunatic jokes, but for the most part they are beautiful, harmonious instrumental pieces that technical wizard Eroc turned in to clever gems.
“The third solo release from Joachim Ehrig is a compilation of assorted curiosities; some, such as Falke Whips It Out, with its Keith Emerson/Rick Wakeman-like organ solo, recorded as early as 1968. The collection also features live Grobschnitt cuts such as About My Town and eccentricities such as the audience participation drum solo of Euer Lied, as well as previously unreleased pieces by Grobschnitt’s predecessor, Crew Blues Session, that prefigure the later band’s spacey, improvisational feel.” [Muze]
“The normally extrovert German prog rock musician Eroc created an uncharacteristically reflective set of instrumentals for his fourth solo effort. But though the album features such meditative, almost ambient keyboard and guitar pieces as Tausendwasser and Vogelfrei, the bonus tracks included in this re-release feature enough of the Grobschnitt drummer’s distinctive eccentricities, including the manic disco of Alles Inordnung and the accordion-laced Die Kinder Ziehen Fort, to keep diehard prog rock fans amused.” [Muze]
Changing Skies might have been named Eroc 5, but having left Grobschnitt, things were different and Eroc was free to concentrate on his solo work. The music on Changing Skies is as diverse as should be expected. There are a lot of instrumental pieces with the typical Eroc charm and wistfulness, reflective of the Scandinavian landscape where he composed much of this album. There are also humorous pieces and demented fairground music. But there are also new styles for Eroc, including a collaboration with a medieval group called Consortium Terpsychore using bombard and crumhorns. Eroc reworked some of the material more recently and feels that this CD is the first proper release of the album.
Esthetic Pale - Long Forgotten Words ($14.99) Esthetic Pale is a German neo-prog sextet of keys, guitar, bass, drums, and two female vocalists singing in English. They favor long tracks and sometimes come across as a modern version of Octopus (a German prog band from the 1970’s also featuring female vocals). Long Forgotten Words is from 2005, Hope from 2000. (To find the audio clips, click the mp3 icon above, then click ‘Discography’.)
Eureka - Shackleton’s Voyage ($14.99) Shackleton’s Voyage is the excellent, mostly-instrumental fourth album from German multi-instrumentalist Frank Bossert’s Eureka project. The album tells the true story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1916 Antarctica expedition, with the songs connected by narration from British actor Ian Dickinson, and the cover art taken from photographs from the expedition. Billy Sherwood (Yes) guests on vocals on two songs, the female vocal trio Kalema sings on one track, and Troy Donockley (Iona) plays Uilleann pipes and low whistle on one. Another guest adds Uilleann pipes on another track. Yogi Lang (RPWL) adds synths here and there and mixed and mastered the album. Shackleton’s Voyage operates at the interface of progressive rock, symphonic electronic, and Celtic music. While there is some mainstream symphonic prog in the later Yes mold, two of the biggest influences one hears are Mike Oldfield and Vangelis, while the couple tracks with pipes and whistle are in Iona territory. Kudos to the InsideOut label for releasing this, as even though it is very accessible, it is still a departure for them. The InsideOut audience tends toward the younger, mainstream, and metal side of prog, and some of that audience is likely clueless when it comes to Oldfield and Vangelis, who are pretty much required listening for prog aficionados. Read reviews here.
Frequency Drift - Personal Effects part one ($15.99) Bavarian band Frequency Drift create atmospheric, melodic and yet challenging music that they call ‘cinematic progressive rock’. Personal Effects part one (2008, 61-minutes) is a concept album set in a dystopian future. The band say they are influenced by movies or television series such as Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and Cloverfield, and their music aims for similar moodiness. The Musea label compares this album to Marillion’s Brave or Sylvan’s Posthumous Silence, if those two bands had a female singer as Frequency Drift does. It isn’t as accomplished as those two albums, neither would one expect that of a debut album. Personal Effects part one has a somewhat sparser sound, with most of the keyboard work done on piano, which is essential to the mood. The album has compelling atmospheres, a solemnity and melancholy that are maintained even through the heavier passages, with Floydian tempos and deliberate pacing. The booklet contains a storyboard-like picture for each song that helps illustrate the story. Read reviews at ProgArchives.
Galaad - Vae Victis ($15.99)Galaad is a Swiss neo-prog band with a charismatic vocalist singing in French. While their debut was very Ange-influenced, their second album Vae Victis (1995) is heavier, like a meeting between Ange and Dream Theater, while maintaining the lyricism and melodrama.
Grobschnitt - Illegal ($16.99)
Grobschnitt - Jumbo ($16.99)
These are the 2006-2009 digipack editions on SPV’s Revisited Records label. Grobschnitt were one of the top few German progressive rock bands, quite possibly the best. Though they began as more of a Krautrock band, by the time of their 1975 third album Jumbo, they had become a very refined, melodic symphonic progressive band singing mostly in English, Germany’s counterpart to Genesis, with a sense of humor usually evident. A string of great symphonic prog albums followed before it all went horribly wrong, as with so many other 70’s prog bands who didn’t make it out of the 80’s.
Grobschnitt’s second album Ballermann (1974), originally a double-LP, was a transitional album, much more symphonic than their debut but still full of space rock, hard rock, psych and Krautrock. The studio version of the legendary space-rock epic Solar Music is featured on this album. Much of the music is reminiscent of Nektar in that there is a significant role for keyboards but is ultimately guitar-dominated, with a hard rock feel.
Jumbo is one of Grobschnitt’s best and is the first album on which their debt to Genesis is clear. The album was first released with English lyrics. The band later translated them into German, and a year later a German language version of the album was released, a novelty on the German music scene. (Drummer Eroc claimed that vocalist Willi Wildschwein was glad to finally understand what he was singing about.) This CD features both English and German versions plus two bonus tracks.
Rockpommel’s Land (1977) is Grobschnitt’s rock opera and for some their masterpiece, just four tracks highlighted by the 20-minute title track, all sung in English. This CD adds a 17-minute live bonus track. Keyboardist Mist developed the concept for this album, and it is true to the style of Mist’s idols, Yes and Genesis. Here is an mp3 of the finale.
The track Solar Music was originally released in 1974 on Ballermann. The piece was expanded and improved live, the energy greatly increased and reaching 50-60 minutes on stage, always accompanied by an immense fire-show celebrated by the crew interacting with the musicians. It is mostly instrumental, spacey, and jam-oriented, quite a contrast to Rockpommel’s Land. Solar Music became Grobschnitt’s signature piece, and in 1978 Solar Music Live was released by the Brain label on vinyl, running 55-minutes. This LP became a milestone in Grobschnitt’s history, and many still consider it the best live recording of any German progressive or Krautrock band. This digipack reissue adds two bonus tracks, one inconsequential, the other called The Missing 13 Minutes, material originally omitted to fit everything onto one LP.
Illegal (1981) was the last good Grobschnitt album. Those who relish the jamming style of Solar Music won’t find much like that here, but Illegal does contain some excellent songs in Grobschnitt’s unique style (as did the previous album Merry-Go-Round). In fact this is the best-selling Grobschnitt record after Rockpommel’s Land and Solar Music Live. We all know what was happening in popular music at this time, so while Grobschnitt were forced to modernize some, Illegal is better than one might have expected. This CD edition was remastered by drummer Eroc in 2008 and contains three bonus tracks: an 11:30 live version of the title track and two alternate mixes.
Eroc remastered live material from throughout Grobschnitt’s career into a series of 2CDs (and one 3CD) called Grobschnitt Story. These didn’t receive wide distribution. The International Story compiles material from that series into a double-CD with each CD over 79-minutes long, plus a 16-page booklet in English. One track, Magic Train (10:15), is a previously-unreleased version, and there is an entire performance of Solar Music. The sound quality of this set is excellent.
Harmonia - Deluxe ($15.99) These are the 2007 remastered digipack editions on SPV’s Revisited Records label of these Krautrock classics. The debut Harmonia LP, Musik Von Harmonia, appeared in 1974 and marks the first collaborative effort between Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster and Michael Rother of Neu!. Harmonia’s style wedded Cluster’s exploratory space music with the chugging rhythms and guitar of Rother, making for an enchanting blend of acoustic, electronic, and electro-acoustic instruments. From the press release: “The three members were skilled keyboard players, guitarists, electronic percussionists and composers. This was a group musically and conceptually miles ahead of its time. The debut Harmonia album is at once a product of their source bands and a fine new twist on them, resulting in music that captures what is for many the Krautrock ideal, or more accurately, the motorik ideal. It’s not Kraftwerk’s all-synth, clean, clinical pulse; nor Neu!’s seemingly effortless glide; nor Can’s stomping art-world-funk. Instead it’s at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, a supergroup of sorts that easily achieves and maintains such a seemingly overstated status by embracing a variety of approaches that work wonders.”
Deluxe (1975) was the second record for Harmonia. On this album, Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru plays drums on some tracks, so only two tracks use the analog drum machine. The three members all contribute vocals, though the album is heavily instrumental. The compositions are more complex than on their debut, and the end result is both spacey/trippy and pastoral, charming and innovative.
The Healing Road - Timanfaya ($15.99) The Healing Road (the name taken from Neil Peart’s book) is a studio project led by German keyboardist Hanspeter Hess with a number of other musicians contributing drums, bass, guitars, and more keyboards. Timanfaya is the second The Healing Road album, initially released independently in 2007 before being picked up by Musea in 2008. This is instrumental keyboard-dominated symphonic rock with aspects of both classic and neo-prog. Hess lists Yes, Genesis, Mike Oldfield, Spock's Beard and Rush as influences. Of those, Genesis is the strongest, followed by Oldfield, the others not so much. Camel should probably be included -- isn’t the track Crater Camels a reference to Moonmadness? These are tasteful compositions full of nuance, a very exciting and satisfying progressive rock record. Just listen to this 8:41 mp3 album sampler (same audio currently on the band’s MySpace page) and read the reviews at Progressor and Prog Archives. Note there is a third The Healing Road album available, but only as an inseparable CD+vinyl LP package. (What, no wax cylinder?) When they come to their senses and make the CD available by itself, we’ll stock it.
High Wheel - Live Before the Storm (2CD, $23.99) 
High Wheel - 1910 ($16.99)These are Progress Records’ 2007 remastered reissues of the studio CDs from High Wheel, a German symphonic progressive band who have improved with each CD. There (1996, 76-minutes) is their third CD, Remember the Colours (1994, 75-minutes) their second and 1910 (1993, 56-minutes) their first. Call it neo-prog if you must, but their reliance on organ and analog keyboards gives them a 1970’s-oriented sound. There is a little Gentle Giant influence and a little spaciness. At times they touch upon the style of early Kayak or Anyone’s Daughter, though darker, more aggressive and not as strong melodically. (Few bands are.) On a few tracks, Marillion or Echolyn are better references, and other tracks have a hard edge to them, though still a long way from prog-metal. The lyrics are in English. The sound on the original releases was a bit dull, so it’s good to have the improved sound on these remastered editions.
The double live CD Live Before the Storm (2006) not only serves as a 2 hour, 17-minute greatest hits, but the recording quality is better than their studio albums. This is the obvious place for newcomers to start. Here is an mp3 of the complete Void track. Read reviews here.
Inquire - Melancholia (2CD, $19.99) Melancholia (2003) is the third album by this German progressive band. It is comprised of two albums: the first CD is a concept album about Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel La nausée. The second CD rearranges parts of an organ symphony by the French composer Louis Vierne, created at the beginning of the 20th century, and a forerunner of rock and roll. Inquire play a carefully written and arranged music, a generally dark progressive ala Pink Floyd or the German band Versus X, with influences from classical composers such as Mussorgsky. One might also liken Inquire to some of the darker French progressives such as Pulsar or Halloween, though Inquire are a bit less lyrical and more heavy-handed. Vocals are used sparingly. The sound and production are excellent (with mastering by Grobschnitt’s Eroc). Total playing time: 94 minutes.
Ivory - Sad Cypress ($14.99)CD reissue of a classic German symphonic progressive album from 1979, with 30-minutes of bonus material from 1983-1987. The band was formed by the 70-year old former conductor of the Hanover symphony, who happened to admire Yes, Genesis, and Gentle Giant! His son joined as second keyboardist and composer, and the band was fleshed out by a guitarist, vocalist, bassist/flutist, and drummer. This is keyboard-dominated symphonic prog with English vocals. The bonus material is more stripped-down but is otherwise as good.
Jack Yello - Xeric ($13.99) out-of-stock Jack Yello is a German quintet that includes former members of German neo-prog bands Darius and Jagiello. No one in the band is named Jack though. The departure point for Jack Yello’s style is the first two Marillion albums, with the larger sound of typical modern production and the addition of some metal guitar for the kids. If that suggests Arena, that may be the best reference. Singer Dirk Bovensiepen has a fair amount of Fish in his voice, and the lyrics are also in that typically verbose style. Thorns of Anger is their 78-minute 2003 debut. Xeric (2009) is their second, also 78-minutes long. They may be heavier and more bombastic, but as Marillion-influenced bands go, Jack Yello is among the most complex and interesting.
Jane - Live at Home (2CD, $19.99)
Jane - Here We Are ($16.99)Jane was a melodic, sometimes progressive rock band from Hannover, Germany. These are the 2007/2008 Revisited Records digipack editions of Jane’s second, third, and fourth studio albums and their 1976 live album. Here We Are is from 1973, III from 1974, Lady from 1975. Here We Are has two bonus tracks, both single edits of songs from the album.
Live at Home was originally a double-LP. This double-CD adds the equivalent of another album, Jane’s complete January 1977 concert at the WDR radio studios for the Nachtmusik radio show. Read the reviews at Prog Archives of Here We Are, III, Lady, and Live at Home.
Junk Farm - Didn’t Come to Dance ($11.99) The self-described German “fusion trio from hell” consists of a keyboardist (favoring organ), guitarist/singer, and drummer. The band has metal roots, so Ugly Little Thing, their 2007 second CD, is heavy rock/fusion with a strong progressive flavor, much more rock than fusion. Like prog-metal, this is music that is something-else first and progressive rock second, but for the most part it is really well done. Junk Farm shift gears rapidly, playing an appealing mash-up of styles with great finesse, comparable to the band Mörglbl.
Didn’t Come to Dance (2009) is not a radical change, but the songs and melodies here are much stronger and Junk Farm have put more work into the vocal arrangements, sometimes adding a Zappa feel to the proceedings. Start here.
Kraan - Dancing in the Shade ($14.99)
Kraan - Live 2001 ($14.99)These are the 2005 remastered digipack deluxe editions on Revisited Records, with bonus tracks and enhanced booklets with new liner notes and photos. Kraan is an influential and legendary German krautrock and jazz-rock band that formed in 1967, continued into the 1980’s, then took the 1990’s off before reforming for both recording and gigging.
Wiederhören (1977) foregoes the psychedelic and experimental tendencies of the earlier Kraan albums to concentrate on a mostly-instrumental jazz-rock that is melodic, light and quick. It includes the 19:28 bonus track Ein Wiederhören mit einem Bass Solo (Live at Fellbach), which is an extended live version of the title track.
Flyday (1978) features a unique mélange of melodic jazz rock with some Eastern elements. It includes a 9:26 live version of Gayu Gaya as a bonus track.
Kraan’s eighth studio album, Dancing in the Shade (1989), features Peter Wolbrandt’s idiosyncratic, beautiful songs and cinematic instrumentals. Kraan entered the 1990’s using samplers and sequencers integrated into their sound cosmos. The three bonus tracks on this CD are all demo versions of tracks from the album. Live 88 was recorded by a newly re-united Kraan, along with trumpeter Joo Kraus. It focuses on melodic instrumental jazz-rock, plus a few vocal rock numbers. It includes the bonus track Ausflug (6:39), recorded live in Munich in 1987 on the same tour, taking the total length up to 79:33. Live 2001 reflects back on Kraan’s 1970’s fusion era, with mixes of spacey, jam-oriented tracks played by an excellent group of musicians.
Martigan - Vision ($15.99) 
Martigan - Live in Köln PAL DVD+R ($12.99)For many, German band Martigan will be the best neo-prog band you’ve never heard. They were founded in 1994 and have made steady progress with each album, and with Vision (2009, 79-minutes), they are at least on a par with Collage and Deyss at their peak, and ahead of any other continental band who play or played a style similar to early Marillion or IQ. Which is exactly what Martigan play, the original neo-prog style without metal, excessive melancholy, or other modern downgrades. The music is melodic, exuberant, dramatic and majestic, with soaring Rothery-style guitar leads and excellent vocals, and like the best neo-prog bands, the ‘neo’ tag is not always necessary. The 23-minute track that opens Vision will hook any fan of the style immediately. Man of the Moment (2002, 76-minutes) is just as good, some would say better, with more music directly influenced by Genesis rather than Marillion/IQ, while one can also hear the influence of early Saga. Working backwards, the quality only drops off slightly on Ciel Ouvert (1996, 68-minutes). All their albums are sung in English.
Live in Köln is a 112-minute ‘official bootleg’ DVD+R with stereo audio of Martigan performing live in 2003. The disc is all-region but in the PAL system, so those outside Europe, be sure you can play PAL DVDs. It comes in a slimline case with no liner and counts as only one-half CD for shipping. Here is a video sample. Reviews of each CD can be found by following the second mp3 icon above.
Metamorphosis - Dark ($13.99) Metamorphosis is a Swiss band headed up by Jean-Pierre Schenk (vocals, keyboards, drums). Schenk founded the progressive rock band Nature in 1971 with Giovanni Esposito, who is the guitar player in Metamorphosis. Nature began very Pink Floyd influenced, then evolved towards Genesis. Metamorphosis, which began circa 2000, also began very Pink Floyd influenced. Dark (2009, 62-minutes) is the fourth Metamorphosis CD. Here the music is an intoxicating blend of Pink Floyd and early Marillion, full of great melodies. The vocals (in English) remain in the Pink Floyd style, that is, the Marillion influence is instrumentally only. There always was a bit of David Gilmour in Steve Rothery’s guitar style, so the blend feels quite natural. Good stuff that will probably appeal to a large segment of the Porcupine Tree fan base as well.
Flavio Mezzodi - Elements ($15.99) Drummer Flavio Mezzodi was a member of the Swiss prog band Thonk, though his experience goes far beyond that. Elements (2009) is his first CD under his name, containing symphonic prog with fusion touches. Mezzodi also plays piano and synths and contributes backing vocals, while numerous other musicians appear on vocals, guitars, bass, soprano sax, and more drums. There are two songs with English-language vocals and six instrumentals. This is really brilliant. Mezzodi’s masterful drumming is something to behold. No matter how complex the drum parts become, he maintains the groove and doesn’t turn the songs into drum solos. Except for the last track that is, which is a drum and percussion workout with three drummers playing at once. The music is carefully composed and arranged, and the immaculate production makes it especially powerful. In addition to the audio, there is an 8-minute video set to a medley of the Elements songs. It’s well-known among retailers that some prog fans are incapable of buying a CD under an unknown individual’s name, even though for decades studio tracks have been recorded one part at a time, with no need now for the musicians to ever be in the same room together. If ever there was a CD that makes the stupidity of that bias evident, this is it.
Patrick Moraz - Change of Space ($17.99) 
Patrick Moraz - Future Memories I and II ($17.99) 
Patrick Moraz - III ($17.99) 
Mainhorse - same ($17.99)Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz is known to most for his stint in Yes on the Relayer album, where his playing style had a large impact on Yes’ sound, and for his 1978-1991 tenure with The Moody Blues, which paid the bills. Moraz also recorded two studio albums with Bill Bruford. The CDs here are all the 2006 or later editions on Voiceprint, many appearing on CD for the first time. Patrick personally remastered them all.
Mainhorse’s 1971 album was their sole release and might have been forgotten had their keyboardist not gone on to some fame. Which would have been unfortunate as it’s a very good heavy progressive rock album with similarities to The Nice, early Deep Purple, Ekseption, and Quatermass. The use of violin and cello is a welcome touch.
The Story of i was Moraz’s debut solo album, recorded in late 1975 during a period when all the Yes members recorded solo albums. The album is a concept piece based around a story Patrick had written. The album features Brazilian musicians and rhythms, demonstrating that progressive rock musicians were doing world music before it became fashionable, and doing it better. Other featured musicians on the album are jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon and bassist Jeff Berlin. This is without a doubt Moraz’s best solo album. Not only that, it is unique and is a progressive rock classic. Two bonus tracks.
Out in the Sun (1977) is Moraz’s second solo album, a good album though not as progressive as The Story of i. It was recorded in Switzerland and Brazil, shortly after Patrick left Yes. As with The Story of i, Moraz uses Brazilian percussionists, giving the album a very percussive feel throughout, but it is made up of eight individual pieces rather than one thematic piece. One bonus track.
The self-titled third album from Patrick Moraz (which we’re calling III) is widely considered to be one of his best solo recordings. The album has a theme running through it of primitive culture versus modern culture. The album is largely instrumental and features performances from Bill Bruford on the track Temples of Joy. Moraz again employs a large number of Brazilian percussionists. One bonus track.
Coexistence was Moraz’s 1980 release. At the time, it was considered a very forward-thinking album. The musician going by the name Syrinx plays pan pipes. The music blends most of Moraz’s influences: pop, classical, jazz, and ethnic percussion. Note the album was reissued in 1989 under the title of Libertate. Two bonus tracks are included.
1984’s Timecode is the most (synth-) pop-oriented release from Moraz, possibly influenced by the likes of Thomas Dolby and other then-current trends. The album features Bill Bruford on electronic percussion on one track. No Latin influences on this one. Moraz uses lead vocalist John McBurnie, who was also on Out in the Sun, and some female vocalists. The two bonus tracks are remixes of album tracks.
After reissuing the Future Memories I and Future Memories II LPs on separate CDs just months earlier, Voiceprint has released them both on one 73-minute CD logically titled Future Memories I and II. There are some slight differences, bits of the LPs that did not make it onto this CD, but the important stuff is here. Actually, there was a CD called Future Memories I and II released in 1985 on the French Carrere label, and Voiceprint’s version is almost identical -- it omits the 2:30 After the Year After but adds the 5:04 Here Comes Christmas Again, which is a remake of a Mainhorse track. Future Memories was considered a brave experiment at the time (1979). The music was performed live in Moraz’s studio for a Swiss television program and recorded directly to tape as the program was broadcast. It was all new material however, not appearing on any of Moraz’s studio albums. Future Memories II followed five years later. The two combined are more of an electronic music CD than Moraz’s other albums, though there is also piano and drum machine, and vocals on one track. It ranges from synthetic classical to Vangelis to horror movie soundtrack to keyboard-rock comparable to Wakeman and Emerson, but featuring Moraz’s trademark lead sounds and style.
Moraz decided at the beginning of the 1990s to compose and perform music strictly for piano. Windows of Time was first released in 1994, the music drawn from 14 hours of performance material, edited down to the best of it. Moraz briefly revisits a couple songs from his earlier albums. The audio has been remastered by Moraz for this 2007 CD.
ESP (Etudes, Sonatas, Preludes) was originally released in 2003, reissued in this edition in 2008. ESP features sixteen classical piano compositions by Moraz. “Some of [the pieces] are Romantic in style. Others, such as the three movement Sonata in C, are deliberately written in the style of Mozart, but with subtle little twists and turns of phrase entirely characteristic of Moraz. Although some of the pieces, especially the Etudes, sound fiendishly difficult to play, their musicality is never in doubt. Moraz is one of THE great piano virtuosos of our time, but unlike most classical virtuosos, he also happens to be an exceptional improviser and composer. There is, to my knowledge, no improv on this CD; all the music is thoroughly composed. However, the beauty of Moraz’s playing makes it seem as though he’s playing this stuff right off the top of his head. I can’t emphasize enough just how transcendent Moraz’s playing has become over the years. This CD captures a uniquely gifted musician at the peak of his powers and in full flight. Awesome!” [The Mentalist, Prog Archives]
After years of solo piano music, Patrick Moraz finally returned to rock and his progressive roots with Change of Space (2009, 60-minutes). The CD is a collection of songs and instrumental pieces composed, recorded, mixed and polished between 1989-2003. Moraz then spent the two years prior to this release assembling and mastering it with engineer Jean Ristori at MTX Mastering Studios in Switzerland. Other musicians on this album include Alex Ligertwood (ex-Santana) on lead vocals, Bunny Brunel (ex-Chick Corea) on bass, Kazumi Watanabe (Japanese guitarist extraordinaire), and many others. Given that the material was recorded in different years with different musicians, there is more diversity here than on any other Patrick Moraz album. Read the Music Street Journal and Sea of Tranquility reviews. Check our DVDs page for Moraz’s DVDs.
Morphelia - Waken the Nightmare (2CD, $17.99) Morphelia are a German heavy neo-prog band who, while not ready to displace Martigan at the top of our list of German neo-prog bands, are providing healthy competition. They debuted in 2003 with Prognocircus (72-minutes) and followed that with the ambitious Waken the Nightmare (2009, 117-minutes), a double-CD in a beautiful fat digipack. To oversimplify their style, take the first two Marillion albums and add some metal, with a predominance of darker moods and epic length tracks. There is also some Pink Floyd influence, especially on the 27-minute final track. The second disc is actually stronger than the first, where Morphelia slide into metal less frequently, yielding more unadulterated progressive rock. Read the reviews at ProgressiveWorld.net and Background Magazine.
Prognocircus is similar, though Morphelia honed their playing and production skills in the time between their two albums. One criticism that could be leveled at Waken the Nightmare is that, for an album of its length, it sticks pretty closely to the same script (for a jester’s tear). Prognocircus has a Saga influence heard right off the bat, and overall feels a bit more varied. Start with Waken the Nightmare, and if you enjoy it, you’ll almost certainly want Prognocircus as well.
Neronia - Nerotica ($14.99) Neronia is the German band formerly known as Ulysses, who released a CD titled Neronia in 1993. On Nerotica (2003, 62-minutes), Neronia is sort of a German equivalent of Arena or Enchant, a heavy neo-progressive band that has appeal to prog-metal fans though they don’t really play metal, with plenty of drama and bombast. Other references are Everon or Marathon.
Neuschwanstein - Battlement ($15.99)Battlement is the CD reissue of the 1979 album by Neuschwanstein, remixed in 1992 for improved sound. This is essentially a clone of Gabriel-era Genesis, but so well done that it is rightly considered a minor classic of German progressive rock. Vocals in English.
Novalis - Konzerte ($16.99)
These are the 2007/2008 digipack editions on SPV’s Revisited Records label. Hamburg’s ‘romantic rockers’ Novalis were one of the best German symphonic progressive bands of the 1970’s, and actually achieved some success. After singing in English on their debut Banished Bridge, they switched to German lyrics for their 1975 self-titled album. Many of the lyrics here were actually poems of the band’s namesake, Novalis, the most important German poet of early romanticism (also author and philosopher). As a rough approximation, Novalis were musically between Camel and Pink Floyd. This edition of Novalis adds a 10:36 bonus track Impressionen (live in Hagen 1975).
Novalis’ first live record Konzerte was compiled from five 1977 concerts and released the same year, selling 50,000 copies within a few months. This is the first time on CD for this album, with three bonus tracks added to bring the total time to 79-minutes. This was the premier for Novalis’ new frontman, Austrian singer Fred Mühlböck. While the album proper contains live versions of tracks from Novalis’ self-titled second album and third album Sommerabend (none from Banished Bridge), the three bonus songs appear on their 1977 studio album Brandung.
Veilleicht bist du ein Clown? (1978) was Novalis’ sixth and biggest selling album, 300,000 in Germany and good sales in Japan. Fred Mühlböck had joined the band in late 1976, and his dynamic voice is a large reason for the success of this album, while sophisticated instrumentals composed by keyboardist Lutz Rahn keep it interesting. As with so many 1970’s prog bands, Novalis continued making records into the 1980’s with decreasing quality, finally calling it quits after their 1985 12th album.
Octopus - The Boat of Thoughts ($17.99) This digipack is the first legitimate CD reissue for the 1977 debut album by German progressive rock band Octopus, their best album. They made one more good prog album, An Ocean of Rocks (1978), then it went downhill rapidly. Octopus’s main influence here is early Camel. The booklet also mentions Beggars Opera, not a bad reference either. Most of the keyboard work is done on organ. What alters the character of Octopus’s music most are the vocals of Jennifer Hensel. She has a unique voice with a more masculine timbre than most, close to the singers for Frumpy and Babe Ruth or a smoother Janis Joplin. We’ve always been fond of this album, though it may be one of those without great appeal to those born too late for the first generation of prog bands. The booklet contains previously-unseen photos and new liner notes in both German and English. Read reviews at Prog Archives.
Ornah-mental - Testimony ($13.99) Mostly-instrumental ethno-prog and space-dub with some similarities to Peter Gabriel’s world music or a mellower, slower Korai Öröm. The main musician in the group is Dirk Schloemer, who played guitar for Ton Steine Scherben. Generally long tracks taken at a leisurely pace, relying on hypnotic percussion grooves with guitar, keyboards, and voice layered on top. Note the mp3 icon above links directly to a single mp3 file.
Os Mundi - 43 Minuten ($16.99)This is the 2007 digipack reissue of one of the most highly-prized Brain label albums. This 1972 album was the second for Berlin’s Os Mundi and very different from their first. 43 Minuten (the CD runs a couple minutes longer than the album title) blends progressive rock, fusion, classical, folk and psych in a unique way, an under-recognized gem of the German early progressive scene. File next to Kraan, though Os Mundi may have been better. The CD comes with a 16-page booklet with extensive liner notes in both German and English.
Ougenweide - Wol Mich der Stunde ($17.99) For the past several years, bands influenced by medieval music have been very popular in Germany. Adaro was one of the most important, and Blackmore’s Night, though not German, are often included in this genre. The bands cover a broad spectrum from folk to progressive rock to metal. It’s a fascinating movement, but the father of all the current German medieval bands is Ougenweide, a folk-rock band whose initial period of activity was 1970-1984. Their impact in Germany is comparable to that of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Gryphon, and Pentangle in the UK, or Malicorne in France. Both of these CDs are collections of unreleased tracks, mostly live, compiled by the band. Here are reviews of Wol Mich der Stunde and Ouwe War.
Poor Genetic Material - Paradise Out of Time ($13.99)
Poor Genetic Material - Leap Into Fall ($13.99) out-of-stockPoor Genetic Material is a five-man German symphonic progressive band with an exceptional lead singer from the UK in Philip Griffiths, whose father Martin was the singer for Beggars Opera. The music on their 2001 CD Summerland is melodic and atmospheric, in the direction of bands such as Saga or Jadis, highlighted by the 12-minute title track. Their 2002 CD Leap Into Fall is certainly a step forward from their debut, an outstanding symphonic rock album. While we can recommend it without hesitation to fans of Pendragon or Jadis, PGM doesn’t strongly resemble either. Their 2003 CD Winter’s Edge is yet another step forward for a band that by this time can no longer meaningfully be called neo-progressive. The compositions here are quite sophisticated and richly-textured. Spring Tidings (2006) completes the seasons series and continues the trend of steady improvement with each album, making this one PGM’s best. Start with Spring Tidings or Winter’s Edge. Note the mp3 icon above links directly to a single mp3 from the Spring Tidings CD.
Having run out of seasons to use as album themes, PGM have focused on songwriting on 2007’s Paradise Out of Time. While there may be no 20-minute tracks on this CD, the sound of the band is much the same, symphonic rock with strong vocals in service of more concise songs. A lot of other prog bands could stand to hone their songwriting skills as PGM have done. Here are mp3 samples of Citizen Cyclops, The Key, Paradise, and My Other Life.
Free to Random (2005) is a different animal. Before Philip Griffiths joined, PGM was an instrumental project with a different style. The pieces on Free to Random date to this period (1998-2000) but were re-recorded in 2005 to bring the old material up to PGM’s current musical and technical standards. The music here is a languid, atmospheric, ambient style of progressive, owing a debt to Robert Fripp and Frippertronics (though not that ambient). There are touches of Pink Floyd as well as classical and jazz influences.
Popol Vuh - Seligpreisung ($15.99) 
Popol Vuh - Letzte Tage Letzte Nachte ($15.99) 
Popol Vuh - Coeur de Verre ($14.99) [cut-out]Popol Vuh was founded by mastermind Florian Fricke in Munich in 1970 and are known as pioneers of sacred rock, world music, new age and electronic music, as well as predecessors of the 1990’s ambient and trance genres. With a huge discography, their music can’t be easily categorized, but they were undoubtedly pioneers in a number of areas. These are the latest reissues on SPV, all in digipacks with bonus tracks.
Seligpreisung (1973) is the beginning of Popol Vuh’s best period. Amon Düül II’s drummer and guitarist Daniel Fichelscher joined Popol Vuh for this album. This was the first album of a mystic trilogy devoted to holy books: Seligpreisung, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger, and Das Hohelied Salomos. Simultaneously pastoral and celestial, this is peaceful, uplifting prog. The bonus track Be In Love is a special performance enhanced with violin and oboe from the same line up as 1972’s Hosianna Mantra.
Einsjäger & Siebenjäger (1974) is sterling example of Popol Vuh’s sound in their prime, and one of their most energetic and melodic albums. The side-long title track, featuring the infrequent but beatific vocals of Djong Yun, is a sophisticated composition and a gorgeous piece of music. This edition adds two bonus tracks.
Das Hohelied Salomos (1975) is arguably one of Popol Vuh’s two best albums. Here they play a near-acoustic progressive: contemplative, mellow, and mostly instrumental, with Indian percussion adding an eastern element. There is plenty of electric guitar, just not the usual type of rock guitar. Letzte Tage Letzte Nachte (1976) is probably the closest that Popol Vuh came to straightforward progressive rock, though still shrouded in a mysterious and enchanting atmosphere. The sound is loud, dominated by electric guitar and drums plus Djong Yun’s majestic (female) voice, and there are none of the ambient, meditative pieces of earlier albums. These two CDs include three bonus tracks each.
Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts (1978) is the previously unreleased “demo” version of the Nosferatu soundtrack and is among Popol Vuh’s most beautiful and most melodious albums. The bonus track Sing, For Song Drives Away the Wolves is a 1993 version of the original song from the Werner Herzog film Herz aus Glas, revised and rearranged by Guido Hieronymus with powerful guitars and a full sound.
Die Nacht der Seele / Tantric Songs (1979) is more of a world music album than a rock album, largely acoustic, with influences of Indian music and a pervading sense of the ancient, the mysterious, and the sacred. The CD includes four bonus tracks. Coeur de Verre (Herz aus Glas, Heart of Glass) is the soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s 1976 film and is one of Popol Vuh’s better works. It easily stands on its own without the film. It blends some traditional East Indian classical music with progressive rock, and from there Florian Fricke takes the listener on a blissed-out trip that one might compare to Mike Oldfield circa Ommadawn or Incantations, though less English and more eastern. The lineup is Florian Fricke (piano), Daniel Fichelscher (electric & acoustic guitar, drums & percussion), Al Gromer (sitar), and Mathias von Tippelskirch (flute). The CD contains two previously-unreleased bonus tracks.
The soundtrack to yet another of Werner Herzog’s films, Fitzcarraldo (1982) is fairly bizarre. The film is the story of an opera house being built in the South American jungle for an appearance by Enrico Caruso. The soundtrack is a mixture of typical atmospheric Popol Vuh music with a lot of opera music. So if you wanted to hear Enrico Caruso singing alongside Popol Vuh...
City Raga is the 1994 CD by Florian Fricke, Daniel Fichelscher, and new collaborator Guido Hieronymus. Fichelscher is only on one song here. Fricke is primarily writer and producer, while Hieronymus is responsible for much of the new sound. It’s certainly different from Popol Vuh’s 1970’s albums, but still very good. This is Popol Vuh’s attempt at a Deep Forest or Cirque du Soleil style. Each song is driven by drums loops and programmed rhythms, with female vocals on most tracks from Maya Rose. Her voice is used as an instrument. The world music here suggests the Mayans or Aztecs. The sound is much more synthetic than earlier albums, reflecting the ambient dance music popular at the time in Europe.
Poverty’s No Crime - Save My Soul ($14.99) 2007 release from German prog-metal band on InsideOut.
Rejoice - same ($14.99)Fantastic German instrumental keyboard-dominated progressive rock, with a lot of ELP influence but also a lot of originality. These tracks were originally composed between 1979-1982 but not recorded until 1995-1996.
Ricochet - Zarah: A Teartown Story ($12.99) Zarah (2005) is an ambitious 72-minute concept album, the second release by a German prog-metal quintet along the lines of Threshold, Queensryche, and early Dream Theater. Vocals in excellent English of course. To find the band’s mp3’s, click the mp3 icon above, then click on “discography".
Andrew Roussak - No Trespassing ($15.99) Andrew Roussak is a Russian ex-pat keyboardist/composer living in Germany, where he has risen to some prominence. On this 2008 CD, he leads a full rock band. The instrumentals are classically-influenced and often give the impression of a Rick van der Linden album. Two pieces are arrangements of Bach compositions; another excellent classical-rock instrumental was written as a tribute to Keith Emerson. The instrumentals share the CD with English-language vocal songs that are similar to things found on Rick Wakeman albums. The album is rich in melody, with Roussak’s classical piano a frequent highlight. Read the DPRP review.
Rousseau - Square the Circle ($15.99) Rousseau are a German band that released three well-regarded albums between 1980-1987 and a reunion album in 2002. Flower in Asphalt (1980) is the first of those albums, Square the Circle (1987) the third. These albums feature a flowing, melodic, romantic style of symphonic prog close to Camel. On their first three albums, the band was primarily instrumental, their style based on layers of fluid keyboards, airy guitar, and lots of flute. The mini-LP edition of Flower in Asphalt is the 2009 limited edition released by the MALS label under license from Musea, which comes in a heavyweight cardboard sleeve.
RPWL - The RPWL Experience Special Ed. ($15.99) out-of-stock This is the special edition of RPWL’s 2008 fifth studio album, which adds two bonus tracks and a slipcase. RPWL continue their remarkably high level of creativity here. RPWL are usually considered alongside Porcupine Tree and Riverside, and while they do belong in that contemporary progressive camp, RPWL are the most traditionally-progressive of the lot, and easily the most melodic. Unlike P.Tree today, RPWL’s original Pink Floyd influence is still easy to hear, and their playful Beatles side is still present in spots. Mellotron strings add to the lush textures, while metal intrudes only infrequently. The second bonus track on the special edition, the 7:33 Reach for the Sun, is very Genesis-like. (For some reason, RPWL’s Genesis-influenced songs tend to end up as bonus material -- most of the rest are on Stock.)
RPWL - Live: Start the Fire (2CD, $17.99) 
RPWL - Trying to Kiss the Sun ($14.99) RPWL traces its roots to the band Violet District but was originally formed as a Pink Floyd cover band. They soon turned to writing their own songs, leading to their acclaimed first album God Has Failed in 2000, which combined very symphonic, Pink Floyd-influenced tracks with lighter, playful tracks. Their second, Trying to Kiss the Sun (2002), sees them developing more of their own sound. The 9-minute Home Again is very Floydian, but otherwise the Floyd influence is not quite as obvious as on their debut. There’s at least as much Beatles influence, which leads to comparisons with another Beatles-influenced prog band, Spock’s Beard.
Stock, RPWL’s third, is a collection of previously-unreleased tracks, but it doesn’t sound at all like a bunch of leftovers. It’s a very strong album containing more traditional progressive content than before, including a Genesis influence that is not present on their first two albums. In addition to an audio CD, this 2-disc set contains a DVD. The DVD contains all the songs in both DTS 96/24 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround formats, as well as a tour and history video. Though the DVD is all-region, it is in the PAL format, which means most North American and other NTSC DVD players won’t play the video portion, though it should play in a computer DVD drive. Some NTSC players refuse to do anything with a PAL disc, while others can actually play the surround audio songs on the DVD; it’s difficult navigating menus you can’t really see, but keep pressing Enter on your remote and they may play. Note we will not accept returns of this item because the DVD will not play on your NTSC player.
World Through My Eyes (2005, 70-minutes) is their brilliant fourth album. Here they seem to integrate the two main aspects of their style more effectively than ever before: the symphonic Pink Floyd style and the lighter, playful Beatles style. There is also a little early Genesis influence, which was previously only apparent on their Stock CD. RPWL’s songwriting is exceptional, and the end result is often close to Porcupine Tree. Ray Wilson guests on vocals on one track.
Live - Start the Fire is the first live album from RPWL and contains highlights from their 2005 European tour. This double-CD features several songs that have not appeared on previous RPWL studio albums. The Pink Floyd covers Cymbaline and Welcome to the Machine are included, as well as Not About Us, a Genesis song with Ray Wilson appearing here on vocals. There is a bonus studio track, the previously-unreleased 13-minute New Stars Are Born. Check our DVDs page for The RPWL Live Experience DVD.
Scaramouche - same ($15.99)CD reissue of a 1981 record from a German band with a taste for Genesis and Yes plus more conventional rock influences, close to Machiavel at times. Good instrumental sections, fairly Anglo sounding.
Schwarzarbeit - James Gordon’s Story mini-LP ($17.99) German symphonic prog band Schwarzarbeit began with a self-titled debut LP in 1979, followed by Traum oder Wirklichkeit in 1982. Neither of these has been reissued on CD. James Gordon’s Story (1994) is their third, containing instrumental sympho-prog approximately in the later Camel style. Three bonus tracks are included. This mini-LP edition is the 2009 limited edition released by the MALS label under license from Musea, which comes in a heavyweight gatefold cardboard sleeve.
Seven Steps to the Green Door - Step in 2 My World ($13.99) The Puzzle (2006) is one of the most intriguing modern takes on progressive rock that we’ve heard. In true postmodern fashion, this German band integrate many different styles into a cohesive whole, but there is little doubt that it is symphonic progressive at its core. The classically-influenced piano playing of Marek Arnold is a key feature of the music, and he also adds some woodwinds. There is a good deal of metal influence, and prog-metal fans owe it to themselves to give this a spin. Most prog-metal bands alternate rather than integrate the prog and the metal. Seven Steps to the Green Door on the other hand blend the two well. They are able to maintain the melody and the song when adding the crunchy guitar, and the music never gets ugly. They have excellent male vocals (and some female vocals) in English. The whole thing is surprisingly sophisticated and very well recorded. The Puzzle runs 74-minutes and held our interest the entire way, which is pretty rare.
Step in 2 My World (2008, 66-minutes) is even better. It is more melodic and the metal guitar plays only a minor role, but where the band have really taken things to the next level are the vocals. They use one female and two male singers, both in lead and harmony roles, plus a guest spot for Larry B., the singer from Stern Combo Meissen (once the top progressive rock band of the old DDR).
Shaa Khan - Anything Wrong? ($17.99) These 2009 digipacks are the first-ever CD reissues of the two albums by German progressive rock band Shaa Khan, who debuted in 1978 on Sky Records with The World Will End on Friday. On this album, Shaa Khan sound very close to Grobschnitt circa Rockpommel’s Land. There may be a bit of Solar Music in there too, but the guitar style especially is reminiscent of Rockpommel’s Land. Shaa Kahn followed in 1979 with Anything Wrong?, which includes two live bonus tracks from their 2009 comeback concert. Anything Wrong? is more polished than their debut, as the band had more studio time to work with. The music is similar enough to their debut but with a broader progressive style, taking a step closer to Jane and Eloy. Both booklets contain previously unseen photos, with new liner notes in both German and English.
Shades of Dawn - From Dusk till Dawn ($14.99) This German band released the CD The Dawn of Time in 1998, a very good and definitely overlooked symphonic neo-prog album. From Dusk till Dawn (2007) comprises tracks originally recorded in 1994 on 16 tracks. Work began in 2003 to rework and enrich those recordings with additional overdubs, with four songs from that period entirely rerecorded for this CD. The result is a symphonic rock album influenced by the likes of Pink Floyd, Camel, and Genesis, or to choose some German bands, Eloy, Novalis, Ramses, and Jane. It’s significant that Shades of Dawn don’t seem to be influenced by Marillion but only directly by the 70’s bands. You can still call it neo-prog because it is derivative of the 70’s bands and generally not on the same level, but the same was true for many of the earlier German symphonic bands, most of whom remain obscure. This is very melodic music with little darkness or tension, often led by lyrical guitar and including many dynamic and lively instrumental sequences as well as spacey atmospheres.
Shakary - Shakary 2006 (2CD, $16.99) This is a digipack double-CD at a single CD price. This band is often filed under Italy, but Shakary is a Swiss band from the Ticino, the Italian-speaking Swiss canton. Shakary was formed by members of Clepsydra and Changes, along with several other musicians. They released the double-CD Alya in 2000 and The Last Summer in 2002. Alya is the stronger of the two, an excellent concept album of dramatic symphonic prog, highlighted by English vocals, lots of keys (many vintage), and violin. The Last Summer saw some personnel changes and a more immediate sound than Alya, though it’s still a high-quality progressive rock album. Like Clepsydra, there are elements of early Marillion in Shakary’s style, and many classify The Last Summer as a neo-prog album. But it isn’t that clear cut, as there are also elements of classic symphonic prog and slight touches of prog-metal.
The band consider Shakary 2006 to be a new album. It features partially re-recorded, fully remixed and remastered tracks from both Alya and The Last Summer. Noel McCalla, the singer on Mike Rutherford’s Smallcreep’s Day, recorded new vocals for all the tracks on this set (there might be one instrumental in there), and Steve Rothery (Marillion) and Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) now make guest appearances. About 60% of Alya and all of The Last Summer made it onto this set, albeit with the track order altered.
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Snowball - Defroster ($17.99) This is the digipack reissue on Sireena Records of the 1978 album by Anglo-German band Snowball, their first and best. On this album, Snowball comprised drummer Curt Cress (New Triumvirat, Passport, many others), keyboardist Kristian Schultze (Passport, solo, Cusco), bassist Dave King (many sessions and tours), and singer/guitarist Roye Albrighton (Nektar). Cress was often considered to be the best drummer in Germany at the time. The music is a melodic, accessible 1970’s style jazz-rock with lots of electronic keyboards, close to Passport’s style at that time (minus the sax), while the tracks featuring Albrighton’s familiar voice are more rock and song-oriented. The booklet has new liner notes in both German and English.
Solar Project - Chromagnitude ($15.99) 
Solar Project - ...In Time ($15.99) The German band Solar Project are well-known for their Pink Floyd-influenced concept albums. They sing in English. In Time is from 1997. Five is from 2000, another conceptual work again influenced primarily by Pink Floyd, but not overly derivative. With only six tracks spanning 75-minutes, they love the long pieces. Force Majeure (2004) is their sixth album, and they still build mid-tempo Floydian atmospheres, with floating organ and keyboard sounds, expressive guitar solos, and a mix of instrumental and vocal passages. New musicians on sax and bass join Robert Valet (keyboards & acoustic guitars), Paul Terhoeven (electric & acoustic guitars, basses) and Volker Janacek (drums), plus a new female singer. Four tracks span 68-minutes.
Chromagnitude (2007, 64-minutes) is their seventh. The lineup is nearly the same as on Force Majeure and no major changes to their style other than that they remind us more than ever of Eloy on this album. Solar Project continue to make steady improvement with each album, and this one is exceptional in the varied and subtle details in the mix.
Sophistree - Seed ($12.99) Sophistree is a German neo-progressive band singing in English, whose music could be compared to Saga. Seed (1998) is 74-minutes long with four tracks in the 10-minute range.
Sperrmüll - same ($15.99)In collector’s circles, the only LP released by this quartet from the Aachen area is sold at astonishingly high prices. Sperrmüll play psychedelic hard rock combining gloomy hard rock riffs with heavy organ sounds and excessive guitar solos. Digipack.
Sylvan - Force of Gravity ($13.99) Sylvan return with their eagerly-awaited seventh studio CD Force of Gravity (2009, 69-minutes). Sylvan have continued to gradually transform themselves from their beginnings as a Marillion copyist into a modern art-rock band of the top echelon. With a new guitarist, this album adds more me-too metal guitar, but not enough to diminish the overall result of a worthy successor to Posthumous Silence and Presets. A string quartet appears on four tracks, a female vocalist on one. Keyboardist Volker Söhl impresses with some classical piano that John Tout would be proud of. Read the Sea of Tranquility reviews.
Sylvan - Posthumous Silence: The Show DVD ($19.99) In September 2007, Sylvan performed a big production concert in Hamburg, Germany, which included a guest guitarist, cellist, and three-woman choir. Leaving Backstage is a double live CD audio recording of that performance. Disc One is their performance of the complete Posthumous Silence album, their magnum opus. Disc Two is a nine track greatest hits live from Sylvan’s other albums dating back to 1998, concluding with the 19-minute title track from Artificial Paradise. The companion DVD (NTSC, all-region) includes just the Posthumous Silence portion of this set plus Artificial Paradise, in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio. Bonus features include In the Studio 2005-2006 (behind-the-scenes footage of the recording of Posthumous Silence and Presets), 34 Days (behind-the-scenes footage of the production of the live show), interviews with Sylvan and their main technicians, and a slide show. There are English subtitles for the interviews. Everything from the lightshow to the audio and video quality is excellent.
Sylvan - Presets ($12.99) 
Sylvan - Artificial Paradise ($12.99) Posthumous Silence (2006) is the 70-minute fifth CD by German progressive rock band Sylvan, their first concept album, and absolutely their best work to date. They can no longer be called a neo-prog band, as their music no longer relates strongly to the 1980’s British prog bands. Rather, they are a modern prog band with moody, melancholy vocals similar to Riverside and other recent bands sharing this aesthetic. Sylvan have a tremendous singer in Marco Glühmann, and this is his most powerful performance on record. The music is dark and somewhat heavy but only metallic in a few spots. It is really sumptuous, emotionally intense and heartfelt, amazingly powerful and majestic without crossing over into bombast. Based on Sylvan’s earliest albums, few could anticipate that they would one day create this masterpiece.
Presets (2007, 62-minutes) was actually recorded and produced in parallel with Posthumous Silence. It is amazing how far this band has come, and the music here is every bit as sumptuous, majestic, and emotionally intense as on Posthumous Silence. Relative to Posthumous Silence, the songs on Presets are shorter and more direct. In traditional prog-speak, that is usually a negative, but not here. Presets showcases Sylvan’s songwriting and Marco Glühmann’s vocal talents like never before. With this album, Sylvan are now easily on the same level as Porcupine Tree and Hogarth-era Marillion, yet listening to Presets makes one wonder, have P.Tree or Marillion ever put this many great melodies on one album?
Sylvan began in the late 1990’s as a prototypical neo-prog band, but while so many others who derived their sound from Marillion have disbanded, Sylvan have persevered, becoming more professional and their music much stronger. They have a great singer with a powerful and expressive voice, singing in flawless English. X-Rayed (2004) and Artificial Paradise (2002) are both 69-minutes long. Both are strong albums, with X-Rayed showing more influences of modern rock, making for a more serious and moody sound. The more contemporary influences are blended with Sylvan’s original neo-prog style, notable for the Rothery-like lead guitar lines, and it all comes together most effectively on their epic length tracks.
T - Voices ($14.99)T is the moniker used by Thomas Thielen, formerly singer/guitarist of the band Scythe. Voices (2006, 73-minutes) is the second T album, a seriously under-recognized work of modern symphonic prog. Thielen’s voice has similarities to Steve Hogarth and Peter Gabriel, and the music has similarities to Brave and other later Marillion, to Gabriel, and to bands such as Product and No-Man. The predominant mood is dark, atmospheric, surreal, dramatic and profound. There are lots of richly-textured, detailed, dense instrumental arrangements that often include Mellotron and strings. These tracks supposedly deal with the voices we hear in our heads in various life situations, and Thielen’s voice has a distant quality which evokes exactly that. Here are mp3 samples of the songs Party Piece, Septic, and Second Thoughts. This is the MALS label edition, which is identical to the Galileo edition apart from label boilerplate.
Tea for Two - Twisted ($14.99) German neo-prog band Tea for Two began with a 1993 studio album and a 1996 live album, neither of which was anything to write home about. But they made great strides with their second studio album 101 (2000), which was similar enough to Clepsydra or just about any of the Marillion-derived European neo-prog bands to appeal to the same fans, with plenty of 1970’s-inspired passages as well, suggesting Machiavel and others. Tea for Two take their time between albums, but each has improved significantly on the previous, and Twisted (2006) is their best yet. After opening with a prog-flamenco song, there are many medieval/renaissance touches from recorders, mandolin, and acoustic guitar (think Jethro Tull), plus guest musicians adding fretless bass, cello, female vocals, and more. The music is no longer in Marillion territory but is more original, high-caliber melodic progressive rock.
Michael Schumpelt is the keyboardist of Tea for Two, and Mirror of My Soul (2006) is a solo grand piano album. It’s hard for prog fans to get tremendously excited about solo piano albums, but this one is quite entertaining because the songs sound like piano arrangements of rock songs. Well, that’s what at least some of them are, since there are Tea for Two songs here. Schumpelt is influenced by Tony Banks, though that is only one aspect of his style. “Michael Schumpelt’s Mirror of My Soul is in many ways a remarkable album of rather extraordinary piano music and should be essential listening for anybody having respect for any kind of good symphonic music, as well as those art-rock fans who are able not only to recognize their beloved music in the absence of a rock component, but also to accept it in such a form”. [Progressor.net]
Tetragon - Nature mini-LP ($17.99)This is the CD reissue of a 1971 LP that had been a real collector’s item, as only 400 copies were pressed on vinyl. The CD adds a 14-minute bonus live track from 1972. Read reviews at Prog Archives. (There is an audio sample there.) The mini-LP edition is the 2009 limited edition released by the MALS label under license from Musea, which comes in a heavyweight cardboard sleeve.
Thonk - Earth Vision Impact ($14.99)The 2001 debut by a Swiss trio of keys, bass/guitars, and drums, engineered and produced by Pär Lindh. This is solid keyboard-dominated prog rock, ELP and Pär Lindh Project being obvious references, but with many other influences incorporated. There is a bit of Anekdoten-style darkness and dissonance here, and plenty of power. Here is an mp3 sampler from the CD.
Toxic Smile - Overdue Visit (CD-EP, $7.99) Toxic Smile is the other band of keyboardist/composer Marek Arnold of Seven Steps to the Green Door (scroll up for their CDs). This 2009 four song, 23-minute CD-EP is not their first, as Toxic Smile have CDs and DVDs dating back to 2000. Not many prog fans outside of Germany or Korea (where one album was released on a major label) have heard those previous works, so Overdue Visit can be seen as an introduction for the rest of the world, and as paving the way for a new full-length CD that the band have begun work on. Given that the two bands have the same composer and some overlapping personnel, Toxic Smile sound quite similar to Seven Steps to the Green Door, and all the good things said about Seven Steps apply here. There are flashes of metal, but Toxic Smile curtail it before it can drag the music down. There are two excellent energetic songs and two mellower songs; the latter are arguably where Arnold’s songwriting is best displayed. Here are mp3 excerpts: Solitudes Sphere, Insights, Peak of Delight, Freezing Rain.
Traumhaus - same ($15.99) We were wondering if there were any prog bands left in Germany who sing in German. Well here’s one. While some of Traumhaus’ 2001 debut is stylistically similar to neo-prog bands such as Ziff or early Sylvan, Traumhaus also inhabit Rocket Scientists territory, melodic symphonic progressive that isn’t really neo-prog but is heavy at times. The German vocals remind us of East German bands such as Stern Meissen and Lift, and some of the material is on the same level as those bands.
Traumpfad - Die Kreise schließen sich ($17.99) Traumpfad are that rarity today among German progressive rock bands, one that sings in German. Serious prog fans are familiar with bands such as Novalis, Stern Meissen, Lift, etc, German bands who sang in German. There were more during the 1970’s and 1980’s, but as part of the homogenization of progressive rock, non-English vocals were outlawed in many countries. Now you commonly find Americans (and Brits) who call themselves progressive rock fans even though they’ve only ever listened to bands that sing in English. So we find a band such as Traumpfad refreshing because the German vocals do change the character of the music, but that’s not the main reason. While Traumpfad’s members are young, and their second CD Die Kreise schließen sich (2006, 54-mintues) was recorded in RPWL’s studio, it is purely in the classic German symphonic prog style. The keyboards are piano, organ, Mellotron, and analog synth, including Teutonic electronics on one track. Their singer is very good, and the vocals bring to mind the old DDR prog bands (e.g., Stern Meissen, Lift, Electra), but Grobschnitt, Novalis, and Anyone’s Daughter are also good references. Given how many classic-style German progressive rock records have been recorded in the previous 20 years (approximately none), this for us may be the best German prog album since the first generation bands packed it in. (Yes, bands such as RPWL and Sylvan have made some great albums in a more modern style, but they may as well be British. There is nothing in their music that suggests they have ever listened to the prog bands from their own country.)
Traumpfad’s 2004 self-titled debut CD (64-minutes) is more varied and a bit wilder, not as symphonic nor as melodic as Die Kreise schließen sich. It is still 1970’s-styled, a mix of progressive rock, period hard rock, and Krautrock. Those who prefer the numerous 1970’s Krautrock bands over the symphonic German bands will prefer the first CD. The debut CD comes in non-standard packaging that resembles a hardcover book, while Die Kreise schließen sich is a fat digipack. (Neither is sealed.) In addition to the audio on Traumpfad’s MySpace page (mp3 icon above), here are mp3 medleys from Die Kreise schließen sich and Traumpfad.
Trilogy - Here It Is mini-LP ($17.99)This is the CD reissue of the 1979 album from a German ELP-style progressive rock band, with one bonus track. Trilogy were a quintet however, featuring two keyboardists, guitar, bass, and drums. They also have a melodic/romantic side comparable to Rousseau. The mini-LP edition is the 2009 limited edition released by the MALS label under license from Musea, which comes in a heavyweight cardboard sleeve.
Versus X - Live at the Spirit ($15.99) Versus X is a German band led by guitarist/singer Arne Schäfer (who also has several albums under the name Apogee) and keyboardist Ekkehard Nahm. They are most inspired by Van der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill; additionally the darker side of Genesis can be heard, also King Crimson and Pink Floyd could be mentioned. It’s an original and complex music with long tracks, dark atmospheres, and philosophical lyrics (in English). The instrumental sections are beyond reproach, while opinion will probably be divided on the vocal sections. Schäfer’s voice is fine, but the lyrics are verbose even by Hammill standards. Live At The Spirit (2002) is the recording of a memorable show given by Versus X in Belgium. The result is four long tracks taken from their three previous studio albums.
Vinc Project - My Story ($15.99) Vinc Project is primarily the work of Vincent Zermatten (Vinc for short) of Switzerland. His regular job is guitarist in the band Ever Since, who apparently are one of the three million metal bands in Europe. But My Story (2008) has very little to do with metal. Vinc plays just about everything here: keys, acoustic & electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals, and is assisted by a violinist, a cellist, and two singers. The music is melancholy, full-sounding symphonic rock that sounds very much like a full band. Some tracks are sonically dense, featuring Mellotron strings sometimes in combination with violin and cello, a fairly unique approach. In contrast, some passages are airy and delicate. The vocals (lyrics in English) are processed to sound somewhat disembodied, and while there are vocals with real melody lines, a few are more spoken than sung, altogether adding a psychedelic flavor. The music is lush and atmospheric, with varying climates that are often quite lovely, yet underlined with sadness. The album is accessible and especially appealing to those who love the Mellotron. Now give those MySpace audio samples a listen so this description begins to make sense.
Yatha Sidhra - A Meditation Mass ($15.99)This is the 2007 digipack edition on SPV’s Revisited Records label. This 1972 classic pretty much sums up the psychedelic Krautrock style of the early 1970’s. Yatha Sidhra create a mesmerizing, dreamy, hypnotic space music using Moog, guitar, flute, and a variety of percussion instruments. The music consists of one long piece in four parts, with passages that vary from tranquil to aggressive. The original LP had to break for the side, but the CD combines all four tracks into 40 minutes of continuous cosmic ebb and flow. Influences from Popol Vuh and similar bands of that era are perceptible, but overall, this is a unique blend.
Zenit - Surrender ($15.99)Zenit is a Swiss band from the Ticino, the Italian-speaking Swiss canton, formed by members of or musicians who have worked with Clepsydra, Changes, and Shakary. That’s pretty much every progressive band in the canton. Surrender (2006, digipack) is their 64-minute second CD and it’s an excellent prog rock album that relates to all the aforementioned bands, though it’s not as Marillion-influenced as Clepsydra. In fact, it reminds us quite a bit of Flame Dream, who are probably still the best symphonic prog band to come out of Switzerland. At least it sounds like what Flame Dream might produce in 2006 if they were active and wanted to make a progressive rock album. (Like many bands of their era, Flame Dream’s final output was commercial.) mp3 of Surrender album medley (7:08) • mp3 of track The City (4:26)
Zenobia - Delayed ($14.99)Berlin-based prog quintet Zenobia debuted in 1999 with the 70-minute October, an entertaining if unspectacular neo-prog work. After a seven year hiatus, Zenobia returned with Delayed (2006). This is a much-improved 74-minute neo-prog opus including a very long multi-part epic. “The German Spock’s Beard” might not be far off the mark. There are touches of prog-metal as is required these days, but the exciting keyboard-dominated instrumental passages are more the highlight. English-language vocals of course. Read the ProgNaut and Prog-Nose reviews.