Without Us is a German studio project led by keyboardist Claus-Peter Fuhrmann, female singer Katrin Oehlbach and bassist Andreas Vöhringer. After their debut Aberrations (2021) they released in 2025 their second album Second Raise. You might think that they are a keyboard orientated band when you see the line up. But this is only partly true. Fuhrmann and Vöhringer wrote both the songs for this great sounding album but they always kept in mind to give also some space for the guest guitar players Christian Mund and Mick Kessler to shine on their instrument and also saxophone and flute player Rainer Dietz and saxophone player Marek Arnold could show what they are capable of. This way they kept the variety on the 8 tracks very high. And that's a strong point on this album. Also, the use of guest male lead singer Marcus Dörr might score some extra points for that reason. More variety in the vocals is always advisable and lifts the music to a higher level. Which both singers certainly do. Just like all of the instrumentalist on this album do. It is an album that might set you on the wrong foot when you hear the title track, which is the opening tune of the album. This one-minute-long instrumental sounds a bit like Emerson, Lake & Palmer because of the fanfare sound of the synthesizers. What follows after this strong opening goes beyond ELP's music. The music moves from progressive rock to sometimes jazzy-sounding musical parts, as you can hear on Disease and Never Enough. Also, more prog metal kind of things are notable as you can hear on Heretic. But the main course consists mainly of strong musical pieces that have their origins in the progressive rock of the seventies and eighties, which you can most certainly hear on the second instrumental Time Signs. The multi-layered keyboard sound moves here several times towards the sound which Genesis displayed in the 70s and 80s. The song is without any doubt one of the many musical highlights on this album. There is a beautiful saxophone solo in the middle section. That the musicdoesn´t always have to sound complex to sound great proves the nice piano ballad Unspoken. Second Raise is a strong album which might be enjoyed by a lot of lovers of progressive rock. The mix of highly complex passages with sometimes simple musical parts works perfectly. In other words, the imaginative arrangements, interesting rhythmic, harmonic ideas and cleverly constructed pieces makes sure the listener gets a very professional sounding album. An album which is multi-layered and diverse. Rich in musical variety with exciting arrangements and beautiful virtuoso solos. An album which has strong compositions which range from colourful progressive rock to poppy kind of music to soul and jazz-rock kind of stuff. An album which doesn't have any weak tracks at all. I guess I made myself very clear that this is a highly recommended album made by some very talented musicians. **** Henri Strik (edited by Dave Smith) Where to buy? |
