THE INNER GARDEN

At the fall of 1975 former Dies Irae vocalist Rainer Wahlmann decided to open a new chapter in his career, forming Green Wave with brothers Dedde Shafer (bass) and Hans-Gerd Shafer (drums), guitarists Marc Fournelle and Bernard Ayling and another drummer, Helmut Sheid.However only the Schafer brothers would remain consistenly next to him over the years, as , after some decent success through the second half of the 70's, Green Wave would disband in 1984 due to Wahlmann's hearing loss.The following year half of his hearing ability would recoverand a new era starts for the group, which however would suffer for almost year by year line-up shifts.In 1991 Green Wave would briefly perform the rock opera "We used to cut the green grass", but this project would be again abandoned due to the limited financial income.Finally the group would record a self-produced work in 2000, ''The inner garden'' with the original Wahlmann/Schafer brothers trio being supported by keyboardist Stephan Richter, freshly acquired guitarist Christoph Waltner and female singer Andrea Bettinger.

''The inner garden'' is actually a mixed bag of rock sounds, a long trip into the land of Rock Music over different times and fashions, blending Prog Rock with Hard Rock, Synth-Pop and Melodic Rock.The basic ingredients of Green Wave's updated face is a guitar-driven Heavy/Hard Rock with melodramatic vocals, coming out of the theatrical acts of the 70's, and some clever breaks into calmer or even atmospheric/cinematic passages.Hard to be accurately described, the music is quite accesible wih decent structures and sharp sounds, often doubled by soaring synthesizers.Wahlmann's voice still retains this harsh accent he had from his days with Dies Irae, while psychedelic bits from that era are still present in some of the album's moods.Harmonica, female vocals and diverse tempos make the listening fairly interesting and attractive, although the pair of Synth Pop-flavored tunes around the middle are rather dull and musically very weak.Towards the end the album starts to come closer to the legendary 70's Teutonic bands, like on ''Brighton Beach'', where the floating synthesizers have a strong ELOY sense around them, while the pair of ''The Kahini brothers''/''Hope'' tracks kicks off with a melancholic, theatrical vocal performance by Wahlmann, supported by piano, evolving into a great, low-tempo Symphonic/Space Rock piece with obvious GROBSCHNITT references, characterized by its edgy synthesizers, the FLOYD-ian guitar solos and Wahlmann's caustic voice.

Green Wave officially debuted 25 years afer their original formation and their debut is a nice jam of different sounds, producing echoes from the 70's, 80's and more recent fashions.Maybe it is a bit confusing, but in general ''The inner garden'' can please a lot of different rock masses, from fans of Hard Rock to even lovers of Teutonic Symphonic/Space Rock.And that is certainly an achievement.Warmly recommended.