OUT OF THIS WORLD

The Dutch melodic symphonic crossover group Kayak is going through a brilliant phase since founding member Ton Scherpenzeel reformed the group in 2018 with the record 'Seventeen'. The 'Live 2019' record showed the new band to be in a glorious form on stage (which I also witnessed myself in the city of Arnhem). Vocalist Bart Schwertmann is the best singer the band ever had (which is saying a lot) and master guitarist Marcel Singer is the ballsy counterweight to Ton Scherpenzeel's very melodic and classically influenced type of songwriting. On their latest record 'Out of this World' the band manages to bring some of that great podium flair to the record (something lacking on the rather flat sounding 'Seventeen' record). The production is quite good here. Kayak usually makes albums with a few strong progressive rock tracks and a string of lighter melodic pop rock songs and this album is no different. There are however a lot of great five-star progressive tracks here; 'Out of This World', 'Under a Scar', 'Kaja', 'Mystery', 'The Way She Said Goodbye', 'Critical Mass', 'Red Rag to a Bull' and 'A Writer's Tale' are all tracks fit among the best material of the band. Think of extended Kayak classics like 'Merlin', 'Icarus', 'Starlight Dancer' and 'Daphne'. The band uses some classic building blocks to make the sound typically 'Kayak'; the intelligent harmonic chords patterns by Scherpenzeel, the endless melodic lines in vocals and guitar, the interesting mood changes within songs and the band's recognizable 'light touch' to tie it all together. Sadly the album is also plagued by three out of place sounding pop songs on which guitarist Marcel Singor has lead vocals. As much as I adore his guitar playing, I just don't see how these songs fit on a Kayak album with their strong influences of Bowie and perhaps Sting. Other notable songs are 'One by One', a ballad sung by bass player Kristoffer Gildenlöw that could have been written by Trans-siberian Orchestra. The last songs 'Ship of Theseus' is sung by Ton Scherpenzeel himself and is actually a nice ending with a ghost ship theme and atmosphere. This album could have easily been Kayak's 21th century swansong and it would still have had a playing time of 50 minutes, but as it stands I can't give it more than four stars. 'Out of this World' does however offer some of the best symphonic progressive rock of 2021 and therefor comes as highly recommended to listeners of before-mentioned genres.