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Anekdoten - Nucleus CD (album) cover

NUCLEUS

Anekdoten

 

Heavy Prog

4.02 | 459 ratings

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Gatot
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
5 stars Anekdoten was previously King Edward - a band that was formed in the vein of King Crimson. The arrival of keyboardist / cellist Anna Sofi Dahlberg remarked the change of band's name to Anekdoten. Guitarist Nicklas Berg and drummer Peter Nordins were previously members of the Manson Family Band - a band with roots in psychedelic vein; influenced by Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Not a lot that we knew the music of King Edward. It seems only one song "Sad Rain" that appeared on the Japanese version of Vemod., the band's debut album (1993). Vemod is a Sweden word that means "melancholy" and basically represented the band's music. Nucleus is second album that has pushed the melancholy mood further into a darker - and a bit harder - music with more complex composition. Nucleus is truly a prog album with variety of styles and frequent tempo changes. Peter Nordins' drumming style is excellent. His snare drum sounds like Bill Bruford's.

Nucleus opens the album with a fast tempo music at its intro part with a distorted guitar work, solid bass line, heavy mellotron sounds and dynamic drumming in noisy style but it's nice. It turns into quieter passage with bass and drum to accompany vocal part. Having done the quiet passage the vocal turns louder with the music in faster tempo and it returns back to quieter mood with solid bass line. I observe the drumming beats are so dynamic. I love Nordins' drumming style! Cello is sometimes used to accentuate transition parts or during the singing line. It's a beautifully composed music with a hard driving rhythm and dark mood. It's gonna be tough for those who are new to this kind of music. But for those who've been familiar with King Crimson or Van der Graaf Generator sounds would love this track.

Harvest begins with an ambient keyboard followed with a vocal part in mellow style, in the vein of Hammil's. Drum work enters the music into a faster music in relatively complex composition with distorted guitar, dazzling bass lines and dynamic drumming. It turns quiet whenever vocal enters the music. Oh man . I love Peter Nordins' drumming style! Awesome! The vocals are also superb. This track has a rich combination between loud and quiet passages, high and low points with an intense influence from King Crimson.

Book of Hours was I thought a reminiscent of King Crimson's Book of Saturday with a melodic and mellow style. In fact, it's totally different kind of music. It starts off with solid bass lines and drum beats that accompany the keyboard exploration in relatively long duration. The mellotron sounds gradually enter this long opening in a nice way. As the music flows steadily, the drumming increases its variations firmly. The long opening then turns into a more complex texture combining guitar and bass accentuated with drumming. It then turns into a quieter passage with drum beats and bass lines to accompany voice line. I do really enjoy the transition piece to this voice line - it provides a great musical nuance. The ending part demonstrates a complex combination of guitar, mellotron and bass guitar, followed with a quieter passage that accompany vocal. An excellent prog tune. It's truly prog man!

Raft is a one minute track that comprises guitar exploration in Fripp's style that sets an atmosphere for the next track. Rubankh is an instrumental piece that explores great drumming, stunning distorted guitar, excellent cello augmented with inventive bass lines. This track is probably far from being melodic, but it has a very tight composition and strong song writing.

Here begins with a combination of cello and keyboard sound that accompany a voice line augmented with percussives. It's melodic singing part reminiscent of Hammil's style. Cello sound accentuates the textures of this opening. The music turns a little bit louder with more energetic singing, projecting the dark image of the song. Violin / cello solo in the middle of the song is stunning and produces a killing melody! Oh man . it's killing me really .. These guys are truly masters of melodic dark music! I'm really impressed with this song. As this song mostly explores vocal and violin / cello sounds, the drum mixing has been made thinly. Even the drum song is different with other tracks. A great track!

This Far From The Sky starts off with a complex music an it suddenly turns into quieter passage with bass guitar and keyboard, soft drum beats. It turns into a louder music and returns back into quieter passage with soft guitar fills to accompany voice line. The mellotron sounds produce melodic and dark sounds. The structure of this song is relatively complex; in some part it produces simple and nice combination of guitar and bass lines and the other part it provides a complex sounds of multi-instrument. The lyrical part produces a melodic sound augmented with a catchy mellotron sounds. It's an excellent composition.

In Freedom opens with a bit of jazzy style as it is characterized by the guitar fills. It flows into a melodic singing part in dark nuance, accentuated by the sounds of violin / cello. Overall, this is a mellow track exploring the sound of violin / cello and some mellotron.

Only one thing that I think is lacking from this album, overall, i.e the sonic quality. It's not that bad but I think it's not as clear as I expect. It bothers me during the parts where the music is complex with some distorted sounds from guitar or mellotron / keyboard. Their third album From Within that I reviewed last year has much better sonic quality. But, put aside the sonic quality / production, this album has a superb composition, and flawless performance. And, for this album I wanna give a rating that excludes the sonic quality. That's why it deserves five stars rating. Keep on proGGin' .!!!

Yours progressively,

GW - Indonesia.

Gatot | 5/5 |

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