Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Grobschnitt - Jumbo CD (album) cover

JUMBO

Grobschnitt

 

Symphonic Prog

3.55 | 145 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Bonnek
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Grobschnitt's third finds them further refining their Yes Album meets Foxtrot sound. So they beat Anglagard to that with 20 years. That's the most positive news to be told, as the songwriting and certainly the vocals fail the band here.

The songwriting is a mixed bag. The instrumental core of the songs is certainly solid, the band plays with fluency and spontaneity. The vocals however spoil the experience for me. Wildschwein's voice is warm and full but he has adopted a very contrived way of singing, very different from the spontaneous power on the band's debut.

But the main reason is not the voice but the melodies. Wildschwein took a lot of inspiration from his country's crooner tradition, German Schlagers! Take the music away and you are left with very mainstream pop melodies that can't please me at all. Maybe it is all meant as a pastiche, but as it goes with pastiches, if you end up creating exactly the same type of melodies as those you meant to mock, then what's the added value for the listener? Traum Und Wirklichkeit and Der Clown are painful examples of that. Vater Schmidt and Sonntags Sonnabend suffer less from it and are two songs I've come to like a lot.

An album with lots of potential that I could rate 4 stars if I would find a way to mix out some of the vocals. As it stands, the vocals are very upfront here and there are songs where I don't dig them at all. If you are lucky enough not to suffer from the same resistance, you'll get yourself a solid symphonic album. 3.5 stars

Bonnek | 3/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this GROBSCHNITT review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.