BLÅ VARDAG

3.5 stars really. I was quite surprised by the sole album produced by this obscure swedish band, even more so if you consider that Bla Vardag was released in 1979! It´s really hard to find a good, old fashioned prog album around that time, specially for a new group and an all instrumental one! Small wonder it made no impact at all (tell me about wrong timing!!). However, the music inside the ugly cover is really good: lots of keyboards (they had two keyboard players), strong Genesis, Camel and ELP influences plus a more than light leaning towards jazz rock/fusion arrangements.

Overall I liked very much the whole CD. The music is quite pleasant, very well produced and recorded. Sometimes, specially on the jazz rock parts, the sound gets a little too predicable and boring, but most of the time is highly melodic and creative. A little more edge would do wonders, but, hey, we´re talking about a first work and, in this light, Bla Vardag is more than just good or promising. A real shame they didn´t have the chance to produce a follow up. It would be very interesting to see what they would come up with after they hade more experience and time to hone their skills at the songwriting department.

Highlights: the melodic title track and the 12 minute suite Pa Gata, really good. My CD came with three bonus tracks (one is said to be recorded specially for the CD release of the album) and I can say that those extra tunes are on par, or maybe slightly bettter, than the original work, making these additions a very welcome surprise. Sound quality is also top notch.

Conclusion: even if Bla Vardag is not a masterpiece some claim, this is a highly enjoable instrumental prog that came from a time when symphonic progressive music was on its darkest hours (and least creative period). If you like fine instrumental prog music with jazz rock overtones, you should check this out.