MERRY-GO-ROUND

Definitely one of my favourite bands of all time. Grobschnitt combined humour, great storytelling and good musical skills to produce a style distinctly their own, a style that places them at the very top of the progressive rock genre in my opinion. Clearly as good as any of their best, "Merry-Go-Round" almost ranks up there with "Rockpommel's Land."

Compared to their previous work I would say this sounds closest to "Jumbo", but more straightforward. The lyrics have lost some of their fairytale-like orientation but the music is as beautiful as ever. I guess you could say that this album is somewhat of a mix between the more symphonic "Rockpommel's Land" and the more progressive sounding "Jumbo", to my mind making it even more of a complete package. It has great arrangements with wonderful keyboards and good interplay between bass, drums and guitars - and is, as were the previous ones, always very atmospheric with some stunning instrumental passages.

This review is the remastered version available from Repertoire Records, containing live versions of "Du Schaffst Das Nicht" and "Merry-Go-Round", none of which you would want to be without.