LIGAMENT

"Ligament" is the sixth full-length studio album by Swedish alternative/progressive rock act Paatos. The album was released through Timeloss Records in April 2025. It´s the successor to "V" from 2012, so it´s been 13 long years since we´ve last heard to Paatos and personally I thought they had called it quits. Especially considering that "V" was half new original tracks and half re-arranged versions of older material. It spelled the end for Paatos, but I´m glad to be proven wrong.

Rising from the ashes of progressive rock act Landberk (and also featuring members of Agg) in 2000, who released a couple of solid Swedish progressive rock albums in the early- to mid-1990s, Paatos have released quite a few interesting releases through the years featuring influences from musical genres like progressive rock, jazz/fusion, trip-hop, and alternative rock/hard rock. They are not a high profile act (at least in terms of mainstream success), but they have consistently released good quality material throughout their career.

Stylistically "Ligament" is pretty much the melting pot of all the genres mentioned above and it´s like Paatos never went away. They still produce a melancholic atmosphere with organich (and sometimes busy) drum and bass work, beautiful dark guitar melodies, atmosphere enhancing keyboards/orchestration, and Petronella Nettermalm´s strong voice in front. One of the great strengths of Paatos music is that they never become too nice and polished. This is melodic vers/chorus structured music and you can sing along to the choruses, but Paatos always add a sense of unease and a layer of unpredictability to the songs, which keep the listener on his/her toes and make the songs interesting to return to.

To springle a bit of stardust on your album isn´t a bad idea either and Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth guests on the darkly atmospheric/almost cinematic and slightly progressive/neo-folky "Beyond The Forest" singing a duet with Nettermalm. It´s great to hear Paatos exploring a sound like that, and with great success I might add. Paatos can go from performing subtle mellow songs to performing busy, almost aggessive, and hard hitting tracks like they do between tracks number three and four on the tracklist "I Deny" and "Ligament". It´s a pretty big contrast, but it´s great for the variation of the album, and Paatos pull off playing both styles with the same natural ease. I´d say there are more mellow atmospheric songs featured on the album than the busy ones, so it´s not a 50/50 dynamic. Among the highlights of the album are tracks like "Chemical Escape", "Beyond The Forest", "Last Ones Of Our Kind", and "Who Am I", but "Ligament" is a consistent release in terms of the quality of the songwriting.

The sound production has to be mentioned as "Ligament" features an organic, dynamic, and detailed sound production, which provides all instruments and vocals with room to breathe and to be heard. The many layers of the music are heard clearly in the mix, and "Ligament" overall features a high level production job. Upon conclusion "Ligament" is a good quality comeback for Paatos, and fans of the band´s earlier work can safely push the purchase button. To my ears Paatos are slightly more experimental (and maybe a bit darker too) on this album than they´ve been for a while, and that´s a strength. Not catering to a mainstream audience often brings out the best in a band, and at this point it´s obvious that Paatos aren´t expecting one of their songs to suddenly become a hit, and they therefore write exactly what they feel like writing. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

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