QUESTIONS OF LIFE

Shamall (Norbert Krueler) is actually a full blooded colleague of his fellow countryman T (Thomas Thielen). And this is because of his similar approach to music and creating an album. Thomas Thielen is a multi instrumentalist who even does the vocals himself. And so is Norbert Krueler. Like the "band" description says: he is obviously influenced by Pink Floyd but I also detect influences from /similarities to mentioned T, French neo project Iris and several progressive electronic artists like Klaus Schulze for instance. And since Norbert Krueler is in fact a modern DJ this is not unlikely.

Main basic idea that runs through this entire concept album is the often re-occurring "Life" theme. And for no less than 80 minutes he keeps coming back to this theme playing numerous variations so to speak. So that is a long sit and this will probably not please all our prog fans who happen to like albums of half of the length I just mentioned. And the repetition that is the logical consequence of my explanation can be interpreted as a drag for too long.

For my personal experience and taste it is no problem but if you dislike repetition maybe you'd better skip this one. But if you like drawn out instrumental solos (guitar!) and a nice flowing concept in Pink Floyd style for over an hour this release by Shamall could well be a great pick. I always liked this aspect of Pink Floyd so Questions of Life is very much my cup of tea. It will be no surprise my final verdict is going to be 4 stars for this very fine piece of music.