TERMINAL BREATH

Thanks to PROGARCHIVES I got knowledge of this interesting German band (that comes actually very close from my home town).Their one and only album is in fact quite uncommon for the NeoProg genre where most of the outputs are rather mediocre I've got to say. I have all albums by their successor band RPWL in my collection that I like very much as well. But VIOLET DISTRICT actually cannot be compared that much to RPWL since they sounded much more independently and didn't "carry their influences on the sleeve". The original material on here is recorded already in 1992, but nonetheless it doesn't sound dated at all, I'd even say it sounds better than many more recent album from this sub-genre.

The first three songs are linked to each other and obviously part of a concept. The most striking and fascinating features on this album are the awesome guitar work and the excellent vocals, especially the latter one happening not too often with German bands. The keyboard tunes are sounding nice, not too much squeezy and are applied in a decent manner to supplement the guitars without dominating. At times one gets reminded to Fish-era Marillion, but it never comes close to a mere rip-off. Hommage To The Irretrievably Lost is as well linked to the first three songs by a sample of ambient noise and like those ones a very intricate and excellent song. Assurance starts off with quiet acoustic guitar which accompanies a very nice vocal line then it changes to piano combined with electronic tunes. Here their Floyd-ian influence becomes a bit more evident. Together We Fall is a really excellent all instrumental song with great melodies. Necessary Goodbyes and The Age which are just seperated by the short instrumental introductory Age Theme are very and possibly too catchy ones. Not bad at all but especially the second one possesses a rather potential for a single hit. It segues without any break into the final long track Down And Away which is again a very good and versatile epic song with excellent guitar.

Apart of one or two slightly weaker songs this album is throughout a really excellent one in Neoprog and I'd even recommend to non-fans of this subgenre (including myself) to give it a spin. Although I think it's pretty close to be a masterpiece, I'd rather reduce my previous rating which was admittedly done in a rather enthusiastic mood to 4 (actually 4.5) stars.

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