DISTURBANCE

Versus X is a German band mainly dominated by singer/guitarist Arne Schäfer and keyboarder Ekkehard Nahm that released three studio albums in the tradition of 70's classical Prog. In terms of style (not quite in terms of quality) comparisons could be drawn to Gabriel-era Genesis. A short look at the tracklist actually tells already everything what's to be expected from this record here "Disturbance", their second one. Only 3 tracks and the shortest with almost 17 min running time, thus genre-typical lengthy epic symphonic rock suites we're dealing here with. Well as mentioned already this work isn't quite on par with Genesis' best ones not to speak about comparisons to Crimson or VDGG which are drawn by some reviewers. Also I can't quite follow why Schäfer's vocals have been compared sometimes with Hammill's ones, I think this is way off. Nonetheless these three compositions presented here are anything than a complete failure or a boring affair, at least for lovers of long epic tracks. From the instrumental point, at least speaking about guitar and keyboard (plenty of acoustic piano sound) everything's fine here, only bass and drums pale a bit besides those and the vocals which are quite okay but really not spectacular might be something to get used to. The compositions are rather complex with many twists and turns but as well memorable after a couple of spins. Each track is telling some story, "Curtain Call" deals with the role of the artist within the society, "In Silent Age" is an apocalyptic vision from the viewpoint of an artist and "The Mirror of Division" is about the human imagination which seems insufficient to really understand the nature of things in cosmic and microscopic scales. For those interested in more details I'd recommend to visit the band's website, some mp3 samples can be found there as well. As far as I know Versus X has disbanded meanwhile and multi-instrumentalist / vocalist Arne Schäfer carried on as the one-man-band Apogee. I listened so far only to one album by that one which could not fascinate me as much as the ones of Versus X. I wouldn't consider neither of their releases essential but both this one and its follow-up are an enjoyable and interesting listen, at least if following the lyrics a bit closer. I think this band is worth to be checked out by any fan of epic symphonic Prog. ***1/2 really!!