NOVALIS

This is Novalis fourth record and the third in German language. The five gentlemen of the band do here an excellent job to entertain the audience. The spices to make that work is beautiful melodies, symphonic tendencies and a great rock voice(Fred Mühlböck). My feeling is that they were trying to make the symphonic mood popular. The music is synth driven(Lutz Rahn) but also a powerful gitarr (Detlef Job) is a strong reason this music is so good. We also have Hartwig Biereichel on drums and Heino Schünzel on bass. It is great they are singing in German, many good prog bands do the misstake to sing in English which lower the genuineness in the apperences.

"Irgendwo, irgendwann" is the starter, a powerfull song which perhaps was meant to be the hit. The languishing guitar plays an easy but strong melody. Then "Wenn nicht mehr zahlen und figuren" is an acoustic and wonderful short song is a classical style and with a poetic text. Unfortunately I don't understand so much German. "Astralis" is perhaps the most symphonic piece on this record with a big reach and pretentious drama. I love it! Of course we alse have a one-side-long track in "Sonnenwende" but it is divided in four parts, all different to each other. This composition is not a masterpiece but very enjoyable. The first and the last parts are the best here; Brandung is wonderful, perhaps the greatest on the whole record and instrumental. That part reminds me of medieval folk music and a little of Gryphon. As a unity I can't give Brandung less than five stars. Here we've got a marvelous record which I warmly recommend.

Due to noticing that the Novalis album `Bumerang' has been given a new CD release, I decided to give my old LP a spin and see how it turns out. Not having listened to it in years, but not remembering it too fondly, it seemed like a good time to revisit the album. By the time it came around in 1984, Novalis had constantly been refining and essentially removing the more interesting elements of their music. Here we're left with a stylish but somewhat bland fancy pop band very much influenced by much better prog/pop artists like Roxy Music, Queen and Genesis, and especially solo Phil Collins with plenty of awful bashing booming 80's drums.

Let's get one thing out of the way - this album could not be further away from the classic double of `Novalis' and `Sommerabend', but that doesn't mean it's completely useless. `Bumerang' is comprised of sophisticated 80's adult pop, three instrumental pieces (don't get too excited though, prog fans) and a couple of truly cheesy and wretched duds. The album has a super polished production, and it's well played with driving guitar work, upfront bass playing and forceful if basic drumming, while the keyboards/synths are used very sparingly. Vocalist Fred Muhlbock adopts a deep Bryan Ferry romantic croon which you'll either love or hate. To be honest, even on their earlier more progressive albums, I've always found him to be a wildly inconsistent vocalist.

Side A's `Nimme Meine Hand's has somber and eerie synths over the top of solo Phil Collins-style plastic programmed percussion. Drifting lonely sax, Fred's Bryan Ferry-like dark croon and eventually a massive stomping 80's drum beat kicks in and brings the piece comes to life. `Seitz Dich Zu Mir' sounds like a cross between The Police and Roxy Music with aggressive and super thick leaping bass and a dancing drumbeat. `Spazieren Im Morgan' is a placid ballad with a lovely lead vocal and pleasant flute solos - probably one of the better tracks. `Torero Der Nacht' has strange and bent spacey keyboards over more Roxy-influenced vocal beckoning. Sounds like something off their `Flesh and Blood' album.

Side B's title track `Bumerang' frequently gets your hopes up. The piece alternates between eerie synths and cold electronic sections that build a floating and mysterious atmosphere, while being obliterated by Bryan Ferry, oh, I mean Fred's come-hither yearning and more plodding drumwork. Probably one of the better pieces on the album that really had some potential. `Horoskop' is a boppy and bouncy cheesy dance number with an admittedly catchy pop chorus, but it's still vile and far too cheery. Only the oddly heavy and aggressive guitar playing and some sprightly bass moments keep it bearable...sort of. At least the band wraps the album with the more downbeat `Talisman'. Nice murmuring bass, glistening synths and a somber vocal. It's stylish pop for grown ups and actually displays a little bit of subtlety. More of this and the title track, and we could have had a much more satisfying album overall.

As for the three instrumental pieces, they're mostly insipid and vapid vocal-free rock with no real purpose. Not unlistenable, just completely shallow and empty, if kind of bearable. `Ubert Stock Und Stein' has a soaring but repetitive guitar line wailing over a horrid plastic drumbeat and handclap percussion, Alan Parsons Project style synth washes and chiming guitar. There's impossibly loud and echoing `In The Air Tonight' booming drum-solos throughout the second half too. `Wien' has disco-like funky guitar over wailing solos and more lifeless drumming. Much of `Expresso' sounds like an instrumental version of Queen's `Radio GaGa', but once again Detlef Job's confident and forceful guitar work gives the tracks a bit of taste.

I've always found it fascinating when prog bands try to attempt a balance between progressive inventiveness and commercial appeal. I didn't look on this album as an easy target for a 1 or 2 star rating, I really wanted to approach it fairly and consider it's strengths and weaknesses here. However, It's only fair to mark the album down for having far more pop elements than prog ones, and after all, this is a progressive rock website!

While `Bumerang' is far from a jewel in the Novalis discography, it's still a pleasant if undemanding sophisticated pop album with some tasteful arrangements, especially among the two or three darker pieces. You can still hear the talent of the musicians, even if what they're playing isn't overly involving or complex. It's nothing mind-blowing, but not bad for a pleasant background listen if you can forgive the 80's pop trappings and questionable trends present.

Two stars.

The future of Novalis did not seem bright after their debut.An extensive tour both in Germany and abroad was too much for singer J'rgen Wenzel and the recordings of a second album were abandoned.Two years later though Achim Reichel rediscovered Novalis with a different line-up featuring two guitarists, Detlef Job and ex-Tomorrow's Gift Carlo Karges.Reichel helped the new Novalis sign again with Brain Records and a sophomore effort with Heino Schunzel handling also the vocals was released in 1975.It was simply entitled ''Novalis'' to notify the band's brand new start.

The now five-piece Novalis kept plenty of elements from the previous style, but the presence of the two guitarists made them sound richer and more flexible.This is still keyboard-driven Symphonic Rock, but synths are used constantly at the expense of the Hammond organ, while there are enough melodic guitar lines to offer an additional color.Eventually the band sounds a lot like the early works of SCHICKE FUHRS & FROHLING.Fans of their organ-driven debut sound won't be dissapointed either.The album contains plenty of Classical-influenced themes, delivered by the organ of Lutz Rahn and the synths are usually used in a very symphonic way.But there are also some deep Kraut/Space textures presented in ''Novalis'', either delivered through hypnotic synth-drenched preludes or by the striking guitars of the Job/Karges duo.Rahn though is always there to keep an overall romantic feeling, that dominated ''Banished bridge'', through his work on keyboards.

Very interesting German Symphonic Rock, not a pure masterpiece, but generally an album with beautiful and well-crafted instrumental adventures.The comeback of Novalis is of course strongly recommended...3.5 stars.

Romantic Rock, Symphonic Rock, call it what you want: the third album by Novalis is pure German Prog, plain and simple. And it may well be their best album, from the lovely art nouveau cover illustration (sadly diminished in a CD jewel case) to the music itself, none of it too original but performed with gusto.

In classic Prog Rock fashion the album contains only three long tracks, beginning with the energetic instrumental 'Aufbruch' (Departure) before moving to the escalating melodrama of 'Wundersch'tze'. The latter borrows its text from the band's 18th century namesake poet, who might have been pleasantly surprised at how easily his words were adapted to modern rock music vernacular.

And then there's the flipside of the original LP, devoted entirely to the five-part title suite, arguably the band's finest moment on record, and the perfect realization of their so-called (and now somewhat dated) Romantic Rock ethos. The long, gradual development of the song, with Detlef Job's repetitive acoustic guitar mantra played over the spacey string ensembles of Lutz Rahn, is particularly effective, more so at least than the awkwardly sung rock 'n' roll chorus further in.

Here and elsewhere the rhythm section can be somewhat clunky (imagine a Teutonic PINK FLOYD). But the combination of lush keyboard accents, delicate guitar work, and stirring vocals can be hard for an old-school Symphonic Rock fan to resist. And, unlike too many other German Proggers at the time, Novalis made a conscious effort to separate themselves from their obvious English role models by singing in their native tongue. Thank you producer ACHIM REICHEL (of A.R. & Machines fame) for suggesting the change in language, after the band's Anglophilic debut album three years earlier.

Obviously the decision must have worked: 'Sommerabend' was the biggest selling Novalis LP to date, a hit both at home and abroad. They would continue recording albums for several more years, but we all know what happened to Progressive Rock after 1976: diminishing relevance, commercial compromise, gradual oblivion...an all- too familiar story at the end of that decade.

These days it takes a pair of ears finely tuned to the aspirations of the middle 1970s to hear the album without criticism. But having made that mental adjustment it's only another small step toward uncomplicated enjoyment, a valuable reward in itself for an otherwise disregarded relic from Prog Rock's salad days.

Although they would drift into the realms of syrupy pop-rock as the 1970s wore on, the first few releases from Hamburg-based symphonic outfit Novalis - guitarist and vocalist Detlef Job, keyboardist Lutz Rahn, bassist Heino Schunzel and drummer Hartwig Biereichel - contain some of the finest German progressive rock of the era. A brave and talented group, Novalis went somewhat against the grain by performing rather unusually in their own native German tongue from their second album onwards. Their English-language debut 'Banished Bridge' proved a rather patchy affair, yet both follow-ups - the self-titled second album 'Novalis' and this beautiful 1976 effort - found a group in much more confident form, unshackled by the demands of writing and singing in a foreign language. Alongside the epic double-live release 'Konzerte', this trio of albums represent Novalis at their very best, with Lutz Rahn weaving dense, keyboard-drenched symphonic melodies and classical motifs into a truly mesmerising brew of elegant symphonic progressive rock. 'Novalis', an album adorned with snazzy synthesizers and spacey sound effects, improved hugely on 'Banished Bridge'; 'Sommerabend' went even further. Made up of just three lengthy compositions, this is an album dripping with star-kissed melodies and intricate keyboard patterns, blending the mysterious ambience of mid-seventies era Tangerine Dream with the symphonic flourishes of Yes and Genesis whilst the German lyrics add - for non-German listeners at least - a sense of mystery which heightens the albums overall mystique. The album's key piece is near twenty-minute title-piece, a carefully-crafted, lushly-produced epic which curls and twists beautifully through it's several intertwining sections thanks to the seamless interplay of both Rahn and Detlef Job, yet both the melancholy 'Aufbruch', and the passionately-played 'Wunderschatze' also exhibit the groups classical leanings and bravura instrumental abilities. A wonderfully atmospheric slice of German symphonic prog, 'Sommerabend' proves to be Novalis' key release. Later efforts would eschew the intricate compositional approach in favour of more hook-laden melodies, yet for a brief while this was a group who could more than rival their musical colleagues across the continent in Britain and France. A truly sumptuous album indeed. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Read some of the other reviews here of the debut album by Novalis and you'll notice comparisons to many (and more familiar) English bands: Camel, King Crimson, Procul Harum, Pink Floyd, so forth and so on. Proof, perhaps, that they weren't the most original outfit in Europe at the time.

But of course the same criticism applied to just about every secondhand Prog Rocker on the Continent in 1973. And while this first album certainly carried a heavy debt to their cross- channel role models, the young German quartet at least wore those influences in a more disarming, down-to-earth fashion (minus, for example, the obvious Floydian Space Rock clichés of other imitators).

The lack of an electric guitarist gives the music a relaxed pastoral quality, as heard in the gentle birdsongs introducing the side-long title track, before it kicks up a notch and becomes a fairly dynamic organ and synth-powered juggernaut. The epic 17-plus minute length is misleading, however: it's actually a six-minute song played twice, with a spacey spoken-word bridge in between.

And, despite the heavy emphasis on keyboards, there's a refreshing absence of spotlight- hugging pyrotechnics. Maybe for good reason: Lutz Rahn was clearly no Keith Emerson, and his organ solos (notably in "High Evolution" and "Laughing") were always more tasteful than tacky.

But the English-language vocals were a miscalculation, and not just because of the trite lyrics, although a song like "Inside of Me (Inside of You") can be ruined if you pay close attention to the words. Obviously it was a bid for wider geographic (i.e. British and American) sales, but the band's own cultural identity suffered as a result. Thankfully they learned their lesson quickly, and on future albums would reinvent themselves as a very German rock group.

As illustrated in the empty cover art there's nothing too distinctive here. But the album is nevertheless a very pleasant experience, especially for Prog fans wanting a well-oiled time machine to the Golden Age of European Symphonic Rock.

Novalis were a excellent German symphonic prog outfit often bracketed under the 'krautrock' banner yet in truth much closer to the likes of Yes and Genesis in both sound and style. Starting out during the early-seventies as a psychedelic rock group who sang in English, Novalis would take the brave and rather unusual step of singing entirely in German from their second release onwards, thus limiting their commercial appeal to that of their homeland and a few surrounding countries. They would produce a handful of attractive, keyboard-drenched albums during this time, including their classic self-titled release and it's ethereal follow-up 'Sommeraband', before gradually pursuing a slightly more commercial sound as the decade wore on. However, for the 1977 show from which this superb double live-album is culled, the group went for a full-blown symphonic rock approach characterised by slick, snazzy synthesizers and richly-textured keyboards that showed Novalis really could rock it up with the best of them. The undoubted highlight of the set is the main track from 'Sommeraband', played in all it's glorious four-part beauty, capping off a remarkable performance from a group performing at the peak of their powers. The sound is full and crisp, and the CD digipak reissue features an extra fifteen-minutes worth of material that includes the anthemic synth-rocker 'Astralis' from the group's underrated 'Brandung' album, a worthy addition indeed, capping off what is essentially the definitive Novalis release. Impressive.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Novalis third album, Sommerabend, is surely one of the best albums from Germany. The album is made of 3 tracks, Aufbruch, Wunderschätze and Sommerabend.

The album opening track, Aufbruch opened is a track that can fit any symphonic band album. It's built with a nice melodic motive, which takes heavy inspiration from bands like Camel. The composition is well written.

The second track, Wunderschätze, is another lovely track. The work of Rahn on the keyboards is great, and the vocals are sad, and fit well with the atmosphere of the track.

The last track is the highlight of the album. Sommerabend is a track that stands well within the Symphonic Rock genre's greatest bands. All the musicians do a great job with the track, playing perfectly in the first half. The tension is well built, and is growing all the time. Halfway through the track, it's taking a direction change to something more rhythmic. On the second half, the band sounds more like a nice pop-rock band, with heavy use of keyboards. Then, it returns to something more like the start, and finishes well. Overly, this is the highlight of the album, and the change of pace and mood sounds fresh in an album which is mostly a sad one.

All in all this is a very good album, and is a great addition to every Progressive-Rock lover. 4 out of 5

The second Novalis album - self-produced and self-released - is a competently performed piece of symphonic prog which manages to be pleasant and listenable without really catching fire. The keyboard sound manages to range the whole gamut from capturing the sounds of the early 1970s to prefiguring some of the sounds that would creep in towards the end of the decade, which is pretty interesting, though the band don't exploit this to the extent that they could have. The guitar playing tends towards fairly tired and predictable solos of the sort we've all heard a million time elsewhere, and the drum sound seems to have suffered during the production process, sounding tinny and flat. Still, a sold three stars despite this.

Novalis's first album is often compared to early King Crimson, but I think a better touchstone is a somewhat spacier version of early (pre-Prologue) Renaissance, with traces of early Genesis also perceptible. This is perhaps most evident on Banished Bridge itself, which begins with a spacey intro, progresses into a folk-prog main part, and then erupts into a keyboard-dominated conclusion. Although the music on here wasn't groundbreaking or especially original even at the time, Novalis prove competent at producing a symphonic prog album which, even if it can't quite match the classic albums of the era, at least manages to be a quite strong second-tier piece. On the basis of Banished Bridge, I wouldn't elevate Novalis to the prog aristocracy, but I'd say they could credibly play as a support act to the likes of Yes or Genesis without embarrassing themselves.