KVAZAR

If Sweden with its superb but retro-sounding symphonic groups (like Anekdoten, Anglagard) and Finland and its wild and crazy RIO/avant prog groups (like Alamailman Vasarat, Hoyry Kone, Uzva) are at the forefront of Nordic countries for progressive music, Norway has a few major pawns on the chess-boardgame also: White Willow, the superb Ravanna, Kvazar and very recently Wobbler. But Norway had gotten us used to black metal groups and some rather terrifying but very impressive progmetal groups such as Therion and Third And The Mortal, so Kvazar and WW are somewhat a bit of an unusual breed for the country, and it is weird that Kvazar had to find the French label Musea to get their album released (there are a few prog label in Scandinavia).

This quintet is more in the mould of the Swedish symphonic scene as far as sound is concerned, hovering between Anglagard, Landberk and Anekdoten. Their English-sung vocals sound like a cross of Wishbone Ash's Martin Turner and Anekdoten's Niklas Berg. The songwriting is simply right up to par with the afore-mentioned group and there is a very delicate balance between the guitars and the keyboards. None of the tracks aremore than 10 min long, but the album is also very constant with no tracks standing out. If they have that typical sad and melancholic Nordic sound, they do not have the aggressive attack of all those groups I mentioned so far: they are more like Sinkadus or, dare I say it, a bit more neo-prog. Their music always remains highly melodic but very haunting-atmosphered, never overly complex, but please do not mix them with Ageness, Galleon, Cross, Twin Age and Valinor's Tree!!!! Kvazar is two or three classes above those groups and their guest cellist is yet another proof of this. Their frontman Andre Jensen is also multi-instrumentalist as he plays acoustic guitar and plays piano.

One of those late arrival on a Nordic scene, which proves that something special is happening when you get close to the Artic Circle. In any case in their debut album, Kvazar is never groundbreaking and they always evoke something already heard elsewhere (déjà-entendu ;-), but they remain highly enjoyable, and I still listen to this album once in a while.