TERMINAL BREATH

Coming from the city of Freising near Muenchen, this German band played Progressive Rock since 1988 under the name Incubus, which they abandoned in early-90's to become Violet District.With several lives mainly in the local area they were heading for a debut album, featuring a 5-piece core with Christian Brenninger on drums, Chris Postl on bass, Giselher Richter on keyboards, Mischa Schleypen on lead vocals/keyboards and Karlheinz Wallner on guitar/vocals.The dream came true in 1992 with the self-released CD ''Terminal breath'', based on the life of a human being from the very first minutes of his birth till' his death.

Musically Violet District played a sincere, highly atmospheric Neo Prog with spacious touches, which was a basic element of the keyboard lines of many old Teutonic Prog groups.They sounded pretty dark throughout the album with odd but expressive vocals, intense MARILLION-esque acoustics and long, symphonic orchestrations along with some slight PINK FLOYD and CAMEL touches.Their true power came from the dual keyboard passages, which are delivered mostly in atmospheric and floating beams, unlike the tactics of similar-sounding groups, which was based mostly on flashy and bombastic runs.The album flows nicely with good STEVE ROTHERY-like guitar tones and a good lyrical background, avoiding the ultra-complex themes and sacrifice them in the name of a concept, which required a unique and detailed musical dressing.Moreover they did not excel on melodious themes, as they prefered to create lyrical atmospheres, spacious keyboard soundscapes and slow-paced instrumental parts, which is not a bad thing in my book and that's because they sounded pretty unique in their own way.The album offers also some sporadic references to vintage Prog with the occasional organ moves and symphonic parts, but the result is much closer to COLLAGE's ''Basnie'', which is a good reference point to have a taste of what they sounded like.

Unfortunately the later part of their history was full of line-up changes with Thomas Rueckermann replacing Brenninger shortly after the album's release, later Thomas Falkner joined the band in a 4-piece formation and in 1997 their last bassist was Robert Oschliess.The same year they disbanded with Wallner and Postl forming the Floyd-ian Art Rockers RPWL and Mischa Schleypen joining Blind Ego in 2006.

There is a CD issue out of the same album with an extra disc from a live in 1996, which contains a couple of unreleased tracks.Both issues are warmly recommended to all fans of atmospheric Neo Prog and to those who love concept works.