Poor Genetic Material - Winter's Edge

Year of Release: 2003
Label: Quixote Music
Catalog Number: QXT CD20
Format: CD
Total Time: 49:22:00

Poor Genetic Material publish their third release, if I'm not wrong, and it is called Winter's Edge. [It's their fifth -ed.]

This German band has a particular approach to prog music: it is a more song oriented view of playing music than other bands. And I have to declare that I like this thing! At a first listening, I thought it was a great album, because the group gives great importance to the melodies without losing that kind of depth you can find in all prog records. After listening a couple of times, I find out the limits of this album: is it ever possible that a complete album is always performed with the same instruments? More or less this is the situation on this album: a distorted guitar always meets a piano in the sound of the group. I try to explain this comment in a better way: in every song the guitarist Stefan Glomb uses a distorted guitar (maybe steel guitar) in a Hackett-like style, while it's very hard to discover Philipp Jaehne playing another instrument than piano. This characteristic makes this CD too monotonous and without variations. Even if there are some tempo variations! In the few cases where the band sounds different, everyone can appreciate their ability quite well, as I can in the intro to "Nuage Bleu," where Glomb performs his classical guitar, sharing with everybody his poetic style.

I think that it would take very little for Poor Genetic Material to reach very high levels of quality. Maybe in the next release. In the meanwhile we can listen to a fair prog release.

Tracklisting:
Sharp Bends Sudden Crests (6:12) / Whitescape (9:06) / Hugging Horses (7:54) / Protean Profile (6:25) / Winter's Edge Pt 1 (11:17) / Nuage Bleu (5:48) / Winter's Edge Pt 2 (3:20)

Musicians:
Philip Griffiths - vocals
Stefan Glomb - guitars
Philipp Jaehne - keyboards
Dennis Sturm - bass
Ludwig Benedek - drums

Discography:
Free To Random Vol. 1 (1999)
Free To Random Vol. 2 (2000)
Summerland (2001)
Leap Into Fall (2002)
Winter's Edge (2003)
Spring Tidings (2006)
Paradise Out Of Time (2007)
Island Noise (2011)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin DE

Added: September 8th 2003
Reviewer: Davide Guidone
Score:
Artist website: www.poorgeneticmaterial.com
Hits: 1898
Language: english