LIVE BEFORE THE STORM

The sound of this group reminds me a bit of other German band Jane (fiery guitar and lots of organ) but High Wheel their vocalist is better and has a less obvious accent. From the very first moment High Wheel plays fluent and powerful featuring great work on the guitar. This man plays strongly in the pure rock tradition, from propulsive riffs and sensitive soli to howling licks and at some moments he totally freaks out like in the long composition There (strong mid-part with compelling duel between guitar and keyboards and some church organ) and the final track Hate Hounds (wah-wah drenched). And in Into Voyage he even plays similar to David Gilmour, wonderful! Most of the 12 songs (2-CD's) have a long running time (mostly between 10 and 30 minutes) but High Wheel succeeds to keep the attention with lots of flowing and tasteful shifting moods, from dreamy with soaring keyboards and acoustic guitar (The Screamer) and moving with organ (High Wheel In The Sky Part Two) to bombastic with fluent synthesizer flights (The Four Reasons). High Wheel doesn't make very refined or surprising prog but for sure they sound dynamic and inspired!

German proggers High Wheel have been around for quite some time now, and fans will probably appreciate that they after 17 years decided to issue this double live CD.

Their melodic blend of neo-prog and classic melodic rock spiced with elements from metal and prog metal should have a potentially big audience; and as a live act this release documents the band as a tight, experienced live act.

Still, not everything is perfect here - some songs drag on for a bit too long, some have too many changes of style too fast, and some just aren't interesting. For me.

Fans of bands like Spock's Beard, Genesis and neo-prog groups like IQ and Galahad might want to check out this release, especially if they don't mind some harder metal sections to individual songs.