STORIES, SONGS & SYMPHONIES

"Stories, songs & symphonies" is the German band Wallenstein's fourth studio album and in some way it's their most symphonic album so far. It was released 1975, almost fourty years ago and had an intriguing cover art work where we can read the name "The Symphonic Rock Orchestra Wallenstein" and "Stories, Songs & Symphonies". So we can really expect a marvelous bunch of songs. The cover shows a yellow space where a little chariot is pulled by a white horse under the rainbow. The album has five songs and they are played by Bill Barone(guitar), Jürgen Dollase(vocals, keyboards and mellotron), Harald Grosskopf(drums, percussion), Jürgen Pluta(bass, percussion and back vocals) and Joachim Reiser(violin, percussion).

All songs are fantastic to hear and I think of some passages of the oldest Genesis heard on Trespass and also Van der Graaf Generator blended with typical Wallenstein ingredients such as the classical rock influences and the violin. The vocals are poetic and lovely in their own way. Every track here is very worth hearing and in some ways this could be considered Wallenstein's best album so far. The musicians are clever and bright and creative. They do their own music and the result is lovely. It's a very classical seventies prog rock album with fantasy and a lot of music.

"The Priestess" starts quite calm but fascinating(9/10) and then comes a story telling track in "Stories, songs and symphonies"(8/10) and a jumping and beautiful one in "The Banner" which also seems to be inspired by classical music(9/10). "Your lunar friends" is the album's longest track and also a very intriguing one with classical guitar and sweeping harmonies going through the air(8/10) and the closer "Sympathy for Bela Bartok" is as its name suggests very classical inspired and flowing. I like what I hear, it's very sympathic(9/10).

The record over all gets the rating 4,3 and will get a string four star review by me. For you who want to hear very symphonic rock by Wallenstein this is a good record to go to. It is perhaps not their best album but I like it very much.