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High Wheel - There CD (album) cover

THERE

High Wheel

 

Symphonic Prog

3.29 | 40 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

b_olariu
Prog Reviewer
4 stars In two words - sheer brilliance

High Wheel is a progressive rock band from Germany releasing so far 4 studio albums and a live one in 2006 since then no one heared any new about this band. I was realy shocked to see how low rated this band is here, and aswell on another couple of sites. Man, I simply can,t belive what ratings and bad reviews has this band, is the world lost intrest in good prog music and become some comercial and fake listner of today. Their third album release in 1997 named simply There is a killer album in my opinion, is a concept piece with 20 tracks divided into 9 parts clocking in at just around 76 minutes, is about a troubled soul who commits suicide and his journey in purgatory meeting diffrent creatures and all that kind of stuff, pretty complex concept, realy, it took me more then 4 listnings to fully appreciated the album. About the music, is one of the most acomplished band I.ve heared in last years, even the album dated from 1997 is very actual and inventive in same time, never boring or unpleasent. The opening track Into Voyage , is an instrumenta killer track near 9 min in length, simply excellent, spacey atmosphere with brilliant song writting and musicicianship, top notch opener, realy solid piece. The title track, There, clocking around 20 min is a monstrous epic piece, one of the best I,ve heared in long time, top-notch progressive gem. Odd time signatures are punctuated by a heavy, complex bass lines. The complex progressive arrangenents flows from soft moments with flute combined with bombastic and heavy elements where the guitar realy shines. These are my fav pieces from the album, a real tought concept to swallow from first listning, but worth to be investigated for sure. Now, the voice of Wolfgang Hierl is the cherry on the cake, the second cherry if you like, the first being instrumental passages. What a fantastic singer, who fits like glove in this kind of music, brilliant performance, diffrent moods almost all the time in his voice make to be one of the most forgotten great singers from the ninetines. Helped in some parts by Kigler and Lobinger as backing vocals, this trio never stop to amze me, having some spectacular a cappella moments, very much like master Gentle Giant in good old times, fantastic church organ interluded with the voices, gives a very special atmosphere. To be short, otherwise this review will be formed from 2000 words or more, but is very hard to make one in just only 100 words, the complexity of the music and lyrics needs much more then that. One of the most underrated bands and specialy this album in the history of prog , realy to give less then at least 3 stars is preatty lame IMO. I can say that is an essential album to have and a prog rock album of the highest calibre, very unnoticed to larger public and very unfairly overlooked by most of serious prog listners. Highly recommended, realy, 4 stars easy, maybe 4.5

b_olariu | 4/5 |

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