Spring is the time of awakening, life is getting ready to shake off the cold after an often hard winter. So it fits like a fist that Subsignal present us their new studio longplayer "La Muerta" in the middle of the merry month of May. The cover artwork and the record title "La Muerta", which at first glance seems a bit gloomy and superficially misleading, the longplayer is by no means a farewell song, is - quite the contrary - the successor to "The Beacons Of Somewhere Sometime" (2015) full of colour, even if melancholic parts have crept into the songwriting every now and then. The short instrumental "271" opens a fabulous disc that rushes from one climax to another: "La Muerta", "The Bells Of Lyonesse", "The Approaches" - the perfect combination of progressive and melodic elements. "Every Able Hand" begins with keyboard parts reminiscent of Beggar's opera, followed by subtly classic inserts before moving on to sequences reminiscent of prog greats like Yes: extremely big cinema. "The Passage" certainly doesn't just make me stand out, just like "As Birds On Pinions Free" or the first single release "Even Though The Stars Don't Shine". The wonderful ballad and closing song "Some Kind Of Drowning" with guest singer Marjana Semkina: simply touching. For over fifty minutes, Subsignal doesn't deliver a tricky head cinema, but pieces with an airiness unparalleled, packed in modern and fresh sounds that never sound dusty. The production team Kalle Wallner and Yogi Lang (RPWL & Blind Ego) has recognized the sub-signal potential in the in-house farm studios in Freising one hundred percent and implemented it gigantically. All protagonists act on a level that has an international format: Arno Menses (vocals), Markus Steffen (guitar) as the "Duo Infernale" and Markus Maichel (keyboards), original member Ralf Schwager (bass) and the legendary Dirk Brand (drums) - terrific. Based on the record title "La Muerta" I am sure that Subsignal can bring even the dead back to life with their music.
