9 tracks. Running time 62:13 Maxxess is German musician Max Schiefele who creates exciting and melodic electronic progressive music using electronics, guitars, and drums. His latest album Offroad is meant to be more progressive and like a band than previous albums, and indeed there there is more of an openness one might expect from a band than a solo artist. The aptly titled opening track “Pulse” kicks off with storming guitar and drums and then briefly settles down into an interlude of subdued bleepy electronics and melodic acoustic guitar. The main passage after this has melodic guitar riffs over a rhythms, percussion, and drums. An almost celebratory feeling is created, like we're starting out on an exciting journey on an open top vehicle with great landscape ahead and the wind rushing past our face. A few tracks in and the superb piece “Adrenaline” opens with a bubbling syncopated rhythm and flicks of guitar notes. It's a promising start and the first section of a build up to a tour de force main event where Max showcases electric guitar ripping and tearing across the soundscape, creating yearning melody lines, or staccato effects. The last couple of tracks are understated in comparison, putting the electronics in the front seat. In “Avebury Henge” (surely a reference to the stone circle in Avebury) electronic percussion and pads create an air of mysticism. Refined guitar lines come in and then intensify towards a peak before falling off for a gentle denouement. Finally the live piece “Slow Motion” brings the album to a reflective close with thoughtful pads, guitar work in the vein of David Gilmour's style, and a cantering rhythm that is very pleasing to the ear. As with Max's other albums, Offroad is meant to be played loud, and it would be a great accompaniment to a real offroad trip that gets one's adrenalin pumping.