HIGH WHEEL

VERY SERIOUS PROG ROCK FROM GERMANY,in the vein of RUSH,sometimes ECHOLYN,and with KING CRIMSON influences!This band has only the handicap not to be signed to a major ,but they are so serious and commited o their musical mission,and each audition of any albums of HIGH WHEEL is a pure delightment and enchant for any amateur of very good music made!Pure prog ,with very competent musicians,this third HIGH WHEEL album is their most ambitious to date.Very well defined musical direction and an only little minus,this German accent which may seem not very pleasant for everybody!Long tracks,elaborated passages and stunning instrumental parts,combined in a very pretentious and atrractive form!A concept album has the quality to be a strong and ambitious musical try,with a strong conception and great moments of unleashed imagination!And this is what THERE offers!More then 70 minutes of great German prog .THERE is the kind of album that is listenable from the first note to the last one,discovering a musical crescendo and developing ideas,passing from quite and calm moments to the ones thet are really furious,but with the passion of some young musicians to prove their ambitious musical ideas ina very elevate form!Good production,not so rich but competent technically speaking and some interesting ideas everywhere!4 WELL DESERVED STARS for an ambitious concept album!

HIGH WHEEL's history begins in late-80's ,when Wolfgang Hierl and Erich Kogler set themselves apart from the thrash metal scene and their band ''The Hammers'',searching for more melodic and refined musical paths.Their new project would never become true,if they hadn't met excellent drummer Uli Jenne and after a few rehearsals they decided to form officially a new progressive rock act.With the addition of Andreas Lobinger on keyboards their debut ''1910'' came out in 1993 as a private press,recorded at Tonstudio Rixner near Tegernnsee.

Nothing on this release reminds of a German band,no cosmic music,no obscure synths.HIGH WHEEL sound a lot like an American band influenced by the British giants of the past,close to the likes of AKACIA or GLASS HAMMER with a little GENTLE GIANT throw in for good measure.The album consists of four tracks and three of them are over 11 minutes!There are some beautiful multi-vocal harmonies blended with trully complicated and dark musicianship led by Lobinger's keyboards (like the magnificent and very atmospheric clavinet parts),that bring GENTLE GIANT to mind.Melody is also present through some good guitar passages and decent Hammond organ,something like a hybrid between CAMEL and YES.HIGH WHEEL are most of all a rock band,so expect to hear a few groovy yet progressive rock music,not far from what KANSAS offered two decades ago.A mixed bag of progressive tunes with a lot of space for developing ideas.A recommended album.

This band is often considered to be very much Floyd oriented but I couldn't find too much of this in their debut.

Actually, the music that is available here is rather boring to say the least. The big chunk consists of an ultra long track of about thirty-five minutes (yes, 35). OK it is split into two parts but still.Don't expect any SOYCD of course. There is no vital emotion in here, no vibrant passages, no inspiration. And when it lasts for this long amount of time, I confirm that the experience is not very pleasant.

Vocals are flat, music doesn't show any trace of a fine solo. A long and dull piece of .music? The content of this very long track is empty. Long tracks are fine when the inspiration is so high that the band needs to bring them over in an epic format. '' High Wheel in the Sky'' doesn't fall under this description.

The short ''Conjunction Of Upper Spheres'' is a decent neo-prog song with real connection to any model and the relatively long ''Outside the Circles'' has the same blatant limitations than the epic: lack of inspiration and dull vocals.

I don't like this album very much, it really doesn't speak to me. Two stars.

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.

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!

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Six long years after "There" which was a quite solid album HIGH WHEEL releases with "Back From The Void" a really excellent work that should actually get paid more regard to as it gets IMHO. I can only think of the admittedly poor vocal capabilities of their singer to be the reason for the rather low ratings this band gets. Apart from that fact musicianship, instrumentation and compositional qualities are really flawless and noteworthy. There was an obvious gradual improvement in their releases starting from their weak debut back in 1993 and what they're presenting here should let prick every prog fan's ears actually. Six well elaborated intricate compositions, the last one being a 30 minute mini-opus sub-divided into 10 parts each of them selectable as an individual track. We get to hear plenty of vintage-styled keyboards,, a right measure of oddity, a powerful rhythm section, some pleasant folksy acoustic parts and a touch of prog metal-alike guitar riffing.

The opener "Try An Error" already jumps right out of the speakers with a powerful drum intro, dark Hammond sounds and a strong pumping bass play. I've got to admit the rather oddly sounding vocal harmonies following might need a couple of spins to get used to. Again the band's only problem: the vocals! Nevertheless a great opening track exhibiting in not more than five minutes the full bandwidth of their potential from mellow lyrical parts to ecstatic and powerful ones. Next track "The Screamer" starts in its first part more in an acoustic vein with guitar, some keyboards and the minstrel-type vocals are fitting here quite well I've to say. Part 2 continues in an up-tempo vein, more driven by electric guitar and some oddly sounding choirs. Last part of this song is quite a contrast to the second one starting with church organ followed by soaring electric guitar. "Sleepless" is a rather quiet acoustic ballad and probably the most conventional song on here. Vocals are sounding quite nice on this one. "Void" is the most rocking track showing a touch of Progmetal with vocals that sound partly distorted but well-fitted to the music and some singing with several voices later on. With "Dark" the band returns into a more folksy, medieval vein presenting an ancient traditional on acoustic guitar and flute. There's a quite odd and interesting contrast between the music sounding almost cheerful and the highly serious lyrics which are about death. After this "little highlight" comes the real one of this album, the magnum opus "Blind Archer". That's really an ingenious and haunting piece of work and worth alone the money for this album. Some oddly sounding vocal harmonies and choirs as well here but in some way perfectly fitting. "Intersphere" and "Globes" are both a bit more dominated by keys which is quite exceptional since overall this album is rather focussed on guitar.

Finally I just can say that I'd like to recommend this album to anyone who doesn't mind some odd (but not ugly) vocals in his symphonic prog. It's an excellent and certainly best work by this highly underrated band.

(Edited 8/8/2006)

The album There is a very good, almost perfect work of this talented German band. Of course in such kind of music which is in fact retro prog puristic progheads will always find some pejorative derivative features. Listening to this album of course one can hear obvious influences by MARILLION, YES and as well GENTLE GIANT and so on. It's telling the 75 minutes long story of someone who committed suicide and has to suffer for his crime in his afterlife but gets something like a second chance... And High Wheel really managed to tell this story musically well by using a blend of retro prog elements, some neo prog (of the better sort) and a slight touch of metal prog.

The very dynamic opener Into Voyage alone is almost worth the money for the whole CD. It's probably the only track, one could also listen to "stand-alone". But since it's a concept album, it should be listened as a whole to get into it. The compositions which are mainly divided up in several subtitles are very intricate and with a high diversity, sometimes with surprises like the last part of Metamorphosis which reminds to URIAH HEEP. One slightly negative point are the vocal qualities of the lead singer although his vocals are fitting in some way to the rather dark and weird mood. Second thing is the low production quality keeping me off rating it with 4 stars, but I would add another half star!

What's good? Here: a reasonnable amout of thinking made the story of this album a complete, no, very complete one. The twisted story of a guy who takes away his life and his adventures in the afterlife meeting strange creatures and knowing more what is there for him. Just by the name of the tunes you could describe pretty well what's gonna happen.

There some influences, but some good ones. Like Echolyn and Riverside. The singing is somewhat the same as Echolyn's and the heavy approach could be close to Riverside's Out of Myself, in some moments. Sometimes aggressive, sometimes gloomy but never boring at the point to turn it off. A good effort that never came in the big leagues.

What's not so good? Well, the story! For some it's a great attribute to have a deep plot, especially so well described in the booklet. But for me, it goes way too much in some beliefs that are not really my cup of tea. It's not the fact that they should talk about love like Elp, or environnement like Rush but what's tickling me is the suicide matter. Some people may find it tough to swallow, since the matter is edgy and emotional. Too much gloom could do ya no good. And to me, it's ruining the fun a lot. Just like when Rufus Wainright is singing about love, but you know it's the kind of lova 'that they dare not to speak it's name'. A last point would be more diversity in the style of the melodies and not sticking to 'soft metal' in the majority of the songs.

Overall, not the buzz I expected. This band used to be on so many people's mouth, and frankly, I'm disappointed. Not 'Threshold disappointed', but invest your money on Riverside instead. You'll have basically the same sound and style, but on much better ground.

Well you can start getting an inkling of their talent here, even though better things had to come afterwards...the "floydian" influence is always evident in their music, but it never disturbs the listener! The unique problem is the sense of ingenuousness in their symphonic breaks through (a few ones actually) and here you can't see their precise music direction. The maturity was achieved in a few years, even though They have never produced any masterpiece, but for sure They were able to give a personal imprinting to their compositions, of which you can have an idea by means of this "1910".

HIGH WHEEL, by means of this new issue, confirm all the good impressions and appreciations too, as well as in their previous remarkable album "There".The right score should be probably a bit superior, but who knows me is already informed about my opinion regarding of new-prog today:I don't get crazy for this kind of progressive music but it's worth checking out at least!!