Novalis: Schmetterlinge (Complete albums box set) coming march 10

15 CDs + 1 DVD
Remastered by Eroc.

NOVALIS-Schmetterlinge-15-CD-1-DVD-Brain

Schmetterlinge (Limited 15CD+DVD Edition) - Novalis: Amazon.de: Musik

 

When the mastering is as good as the Grobschnitt Box, I will get this, although I have all albums up to Sternentaucher.

Now bring on the Achim Reichel Box
Btw: Achim produced many of the albums in this Novalis box.

 

I've never even heard of this band. I really enjoyed the Grobschnitt box - which I picked up as a bit of a gamble having never heard the band before. Would this be in my wheel house as well?

 

I guess so. Novalis did not have the humour of Grobschnitt and the music was more on the symphonic side of progressive rock. Not an ounce of "krautrock" in their music. But like Grobschnitt their sound changed a lot over time, getting more bland and pop oriented on later albums.
The first four studio albums "Banished Bridge", "Novalis", "Sommerabend" and "Brandung" and the live album "Konzerte" are generally considered their best. Check them out on Youtube.

 

Too many fillers in the box

 

The same could be said about the Grobschnitt box or indeed most career spanning box sets.
But I love having all official albums of an artist in one neat box, immerse myself in the music and follow the changes they made over the years.

 

Well, Grobschnitt had some very good albums in their discography, can't say the same about Novalis.

 

Looks like a nice set. The first five albums are excellent and the next couple of albums have some good stuff too. I'm not familiar with Novalis' output after that.

 

That's exactly how I feel.
I know one song from "Nach uns die Flut", it's an okay "Deutschrock" song ("Im Neonlicht der Nacht"). I don't mind getting it along with the much better earlier stuff.

Much of Novalis' catalog has been available digitally only on badly mastered CDs or not at all.
Eroc's masterings used to be awful but lately his work has become better. If the Novalis box sounds like the Grobschnitt box I'll be happy.

 

My lack of familiarity with Novalis gives me nothing definitive to refute this with, but I will say that there were similar accusations laid at the feet of Grobschnitt and I found almost all of that box enjoyable - even the stuff where most prog fans insisted they'd lost the plot as a group.

Obviously, that's a serious "your mileage may vary" situation, but I'm usually one to advocate for at least giving it a chance.

 

The release date has been pushed to march 24.

 

The albums "Novalis", "Sommerabend" and "Brandung" are all really strong records, with "Banished Bridge" being almost as great. The "Konzerte" live album from '77 was over an hour of music squeezed onto one vinyl record. I recommend them all; I don't know what the status is of the individual albums or if they are currently in print.

Are you familiar with Eloy? As much as I enjoy Novalis, I find Eloy a more consistent band with most every release (except for the debut) through "Time to Turn" in 1982 to be uniformly excellent. Their albums after that are all over the map with regard to quality but I really like both "The Tides Return Forever" (1994) and "Ocean 2: The Answer (1998). A new studio album is due later this year.

Having gone the "whole hog" route with box set discographies-I'm thinking of bands like SBB and Blue Effect, I find that I listen to maybe 40% of the contents. I guess I'm less of a completest than I used to be!

 

I'll have to see what I can find on YouTube and the like for Novalis. It tends to be that bands from Germany in this era grab my attention more often than not.

Eloy is on the periphery of my radar after having discovered the existence of Triumvirat. I haven't heard anything yet, but they're also on my investigation list. The box sets probably appeal because it saves me the work of tracking down each and every album at a go.

 

I'd love a complete album box by Eloy. I like them more than either Grobschnitt or Novalis.

 

I tend to get into bands by picking up their releases in order and something that stopped me pretty quickly when I was investigating Eloy is the rarity of their debut. Be nice to just be left to make up my own mind about their catalog rather than to have my purchases dictated by scarcity.

 

I think in the case of Eloy you can easily skip their debut. From what I have heard of it it sounds nothing like the albums that followed.

 

As Endymion states, you aren't missing much by not getting the debut. I have it on CD and I think I've played it maybe a handful of times. From what I recall, it's more straightforward rock. As far as I know, the rest of the back catalog is easy to find. My personal favorites are the next two that followed-"Floating" and "Inside" but most will tell you to start with "Ocean" or "Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes". You can't lose with any of those albums IMO.

Sorry to go off on an Eloy tangent on a Novalis thread!

 

With Eloy, CD buyers have the choice between the rather dull original CDs (my preference) and the overly hot remasters. It would be nice to get a mastering that is somewhere in-between.

 

Just in case someone else enters this thread and has no idea what Novalis sound like:



No question about it - I'm very on board for this set! It's got this really nice blend of Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd along with some of the more pastoral touches of early King Crimson thrown in... maybe a bit of Mike Oldfield with the use of backing voices. Very nice!

 

who else got the Box so far ?
Until today I have not seen complete black CDs (also the "music"-side)

I am disappointed with the packaging: such a big box and yet the original Album artwork is missing except for the frontcovers, and they are only tiny thumbnails...

 

Mine is en route from Germany. I expect I'll be seeing it mid- to late-April at this point, unless someone really steps on the gas.

The album artwork thing seems to be hit or miss when it comes to these mega boxes. Some go all out and include full size replicas of the album artwork, and others may give you cardboard sleeves or just thumbnails in a large book. I tend to think I'm spoiled by the ones that do the former...

 

I have at least Banished Bridge, the s/t and Sommerabend on vinyl which I bought in the '70s. I'm not sure exactly why I bought them (reviews are a strong possibility) but I had heard at least one track off Sommerabend before I went looking for it. I thought they were all decent LPs, but I am a prog fan and their style is more or less up my alley so that's not a surprise.

 

I got my box set today. The packaging is similar to the recent Steve Hackett box and as with that some of the CDs were lose in the box when it arrived even though amazon has wrapped the box very thoroughly. Fortunately I did not detect any scratches on the disks.
The lack of proper album covers is disappointing.
I've been listening to the first two albums so far. They sound pretty good, comparable to the new Grobschnitt remasters. They are somewhat compressed but not too bad. DR values on the first album are between 8 and 9. There's a healthy dose of bass, maybe a bit too much. There's certainly not too much treble so if somebody is (like me) allergic to overly bright masterings he shouldn't worry about that.
Take into account that I've never heard a vinyl of these albums and I've listened to the older CDs just a couple of times so I'm far from an expert on how these albums should sound.
So far I'm very happy and I'm looking forward to listening to the other albums.

 

Just so I'm clear, when you say it's like the Hackett box, it's not a box proper, but a sturdy slip-case with folios of discs and the accompanying book slipped in?

 

Well, it's a box. Inside the box is a book and the CDs are stuck in the first and last pages of the book which are made of carton.
My english isn't good enough to describe it better.