CORRIDORS OF TIME

This is how it sounds if you're mixing Swedish folk music with Heavy Metal. Bass player Hans Rosén together with his violin-playing brother Anders formed the Swedish band HAGEN in 1996. The six-man-band also contains the keyboard player Hans Lundin who played in the legendary Swedish symphonic rock band KAIPA in the 70's.

The magnificent Swedish bands GARMARNA, HEDNINGARNA, HOVEN DROVEN and Kenny Håkansson/KEBNEKAISE have blended folk music with Heavy Metal on some of their songs, but HOVEN DROVEN's guitars are often heavier while HAGEN is playing traditional Heavy Metal with reminiscences to DEEP PURPLE and LED ZEPPELIN.

HAGEN is at their best when the folk music parts are dominating. Unfortunately there are some plain Heavy Metal songs too, which aren't bad, but they don't fit into the concept. I hope that they will incorporate even more folk music on forthcoming releases. My favourites are the opening KAIPA song "A Summer Air", "For Kristina", "Questions", the nice violin dominated "Mountain Song" and the Kenny Håkansson/KEBNEKAISE inspired "For Ulf". "For Ulf" could've been taken from Kenny Håkansson's album "Kenny Håkansson spelar Springlekar och Gånglåtar" (Silence label) from 1978.

Most interesting are Anders Rosén's distorted violin and Hans Lundin's keyboards, which includes one of my favourite instruments: Mellotron. Michael Ohlsson is a very good vocalist and Anders Rosén is a real virtuoso on the violin, which is clearly shown on this album.

The beautiful artwork by Stephanie Law (www.shadowscapes.com) is like an illustration from a fairytale, and it also illustrates HAGEN's music very well. This is a really interesting album, and I hope that we will hear more from the band in the future.