Stalingrad is Bachdenkel's second and last album of intelligent, song-oriented progressive rock, appearing after a long gap of six years from their debut, LEMMINGS. Bachdenkel were a more muscular and guitar-oriented Gabriel-era Genesis - though keyboards are present, the guitars of Karel Beer and Colin Swinburne stir the drink on STALINGRAD, and superbly. There's some caustic riffing in spots, but there are even more passages of subtle loveliness present (Beer's beautiful muted 12-string solo in "The Whole World Looking Over My Shoulder" never fails to summon up gooseflesh, to cite one example). It's tough to sum this band up with a nod to Genesis - for one thing, they're contemporaries, not camp-followers, and for another, there are also strong echoes of many other great British progressive-rock acts of the time, including a fistful on the Vertigo roster. Further complicating a capsule summary is the strong songwriting and musical vision Bachdenkel exhibit on this record. As an English band living and recording in France, they were probably better able to assimilate what they liked, without being so waist-deep in the UK scene that the influences began dominating the end result - so anybody expecting a COPY of something else is gonna be disappointed.
