TRAUMHAUS

Something happened to German prog in the 1990s, or perhaps I should say, nothing happened, which is the problem. Of course, there are exceptions - groups like Dice, Faun, Versus X, Inquire, Poor Genetic Material, Shades of Dawn and Sylvan have all had some impact, but compared to their counterparts from the 1970s and even the 1980s, Germany suffered a prog decline far greater than countries like Italy. Moreover, whereas bands like NOVALIS and ANYONE's DAUGHTER switched over to their native tongue as a vehicle for producing exciting new music, relatively few of the bigger names on the modern scene have taken this route. A notable exception is TRAUMHAUS, who released this debut in 2001 and nothing until an EP 4 years later.

While a flawed work, chiefly due to the excessively pounding nature of the drums and rhythm guitars, this album is likable enough, thanks to some deft guitar/key interchanges a la Anyone's Daughter, the group to which they seem most closely allied. Yet Traumhaus can be much heavier, the power chords chugging away or crashing down upon the listener in a style never plied by AD. Just listen to "Peter Und Der Wolf" to see what I mean. But "Zu Spat" is a more controlled affair and would suit those who are fans of the traditional 1970s/1980s bands, and "Wandler" is simply beautiful, dominated by effective vocals, acoustic guitar, and a plethora of keyboards including wonderfully retro organ. Its denouement involves a mix of heavy rhythms and creative leads to string them together. The suite, "Ausgeliefert", has many highlights but would probably be best appreciated by native speakers, as it tells the story of a sex abuse survivor. These tracks all grew on me as I came to appreciate the depth not readily apparent when I first listened to all the headbanging. The choice of singing in German was a wise one and enhances the quality of the release.

Not surprisingly, the formula burns out a bit by the last few, mostly because the melodies are a bit less impressive, and the heavy underpinnings start to sound similar to what we heard before. "Navanita" is pretty much a 5 minute jam and is interesting as such but not really what I ordered. Still, this is a pretty decent debut album and worth picking up if in your house you dream of German progressive symphonic with a bit of neo and metal woven in. 2.5 stars rounded up.

German neo prog,played very close to the style of IQ,PENDRAGON,GALAHAD,GREY LADY DOWN and the likes.Add also some heavier moments in the vein of SYLVAN or even better DARIUS and a few symphonic touches here and there.Guitars are on the front actually with keyboards playing a second role here.The album has some interesting moments as well as some really boring ones,but its main problem stands for the heavy German vocals,which a very raw thing for such a melodic style of music.Not really recommended (and this comes from a neo prog fan),except you can stand this German sung attack or you are a dedicated fan of neo progressive...2 stars are the best I can offer...

I don't know if I can use the same words from the SPECIAL COLLABORATOR kenethlevine in their review (#166244), but my sensation is at least very similar about this first album form German band TRAUMHAUS. In other words, if this album isn't a total deception... have stayed in due in relationship to my expectations .They try make a mix of 2 styles of prog- symphonic and heavy or prog metal. In terms of Symphonic-prog, although the keyboards is practically the melody and harmony conductor don't convince and in their other "ingredient" the music sounds repetitive ( in the most of 8 tracks). Some exceptions which save the disk from the "abyss" are in the two last tracks : Track 7 "Navanita" where the band shows a strong an pleasant rhythm section and slightly close to GENTLE GIANT and track 8 "Am Abgrund" with a beautiful work of keyboards and guitars in GENESIS vein. But in a 60:12 of total time , these only 12 min from 2 last tracks isn't enough to proportion a better rate than 2 stars !!!

A low 3 stars for this one. TRAUMHAUS are a Neo Prog band out of Germany and here a four piece on this 2001 release. This is their debut and most feel they improved a lot after this album. The instrumental stuff isn't that bad in fact I like some of the heaviness that's on here but deciding to go with German vocals on a Neo Prog record is very disappointing. For me the vocals are crucial with Neo-Prog as this is often emotional music and understanding what is sung is critical in my opinion.

An interesting setup with the singer adding synths and piano while we also have a keyboardist adding synths and organ. The guitarist adds bass pedals while the drummer adds bass. I'm not going to talk mush about this one and I do feel it suffers from that opener being the worse song on here. Tough to recover from that but overall this is pretty good although I would never recommend it. The other two collaborators who reviewed this gave 2.5 and 2 stars respectively so I'm in good company with my feelings for this one.