LALLE LARSSON'S WEAVEWORLD - WEAVEWORLD

This is a fantastically well done album with some great players on it. Jonas Reingold supplies some very tasty fretless bass work and Walle Wahlgren is fantastic on drums. And of course Lalle Larsson is is a pianist/keyboardist whose talents seem to know no bounds. He plays with fantastic precision and speed, but never strikes me as mechanical - it's all done with tremendous dynamics, emotion and feel.

The lineup listed above is incorrect, according to the liner notes that came with the CD. Roine Stolt, Dave Weckl and Zoltan Csörsz do NOT appear on this album. Someone must have been confused with the lineup from 3rd World Electric's "Kilimanjaro Secret Brew" which came out around the same time and does feature the aforementioned three players (but not some of the others listed in the lineup section).

This CD is worth the price of admission just for the tune Newborn Awakening!

After I was really attracted by Swedish keyboardist Lalle's album from year 2010 (" Infinity Of Worlds"), I found this ,his previous album, I didn't listen before.

Not a big surprise - music there is really high quality mix of symphonic (Scandinavian) metal, vintage jazz fusion and some modern classical instrumentations. Very well balanced, melodic, but never too cheesy, with many rhythm and structures variations. One great album of modern instrumental progressive rock.

This album (as next one as well) is released on bassist Jonas Reingold own label, and Jonas plays on it (besides of other known Swedish symphonic metal high class musicians). Comparing with " Infinity Of Worlds", what is not very logical chronologically, but quite logical for me and some other listeners, who will find out this album after they were attracted by successful release from 2010, Weaveworld is more classic-influenced, a bit more chamber and less heavy. But in all, if you like Infinity Of The Worlds, you will like this album as well.

Very pleasant and quality mainstream instrumental prog ( strongly influenced by Swedish symphonic (metal) prog school) release. Not the album for fans of advanced,experimental music though.

With a band consisting of two guitar players, the more jazz-orientated Richard Hallebeek and the more heavy sounding Stefan Rosquist, the unsurpassed bass player Jonas Reingold,the excellent drummer Mickael Wahlgren and a small textless vocal contribution in the second song by Richard Szary, Sweden's top keyboard player Lalle Larrson surprises us with a superb instrumental album that takes us through heavy jazz-rock, solid symphonic soundscapes, subtle piano jazz and a healthy dose of progrock. All pieces show an almost unprecedented compositional mastership. Right in the opening track "Marionette" all the above mentioned stylistic characteristics can be fully enjoyed. It's great to experience the extreme contrast between Lalle's heavy and muscular electronic keyboard playing and the gentleness of his mostly jazzy inspired acoustic piano playing. Another aspect that catches the ear right from the start is the brilliant guitar playing by my compatriot Richard Hallebeek. His solo's are very beautiful and his sound is impeccable. I didn't know him, but judging by his playing, he may well have been a pupil from Wim Overgaauw, one of Holland's major jazz guitar players. A more mysterious atmosphere is created in "Dance Of The Dead", a piece that captures the listener right from the start. My personal favourite is the brilliant "Newborn Awakening" which lets us enjoy a fretless playing Jonas Reingold in optima forma and which should provide sufficient proof that Stefan Rosquist is a more than remarkable guitar player as well. Every theme in "Newborn Awakening" is perfectly chosen and brilliantly executed. If you play it ten times in a row, you keep discovering new beautiful spots you didn't remark before. At first sight Remo Gaziotto's "Adagio", based on a scrap of figured bass and a fragment of a violin part, attributed to Tomasso Albinoni, seems a bit kitschy, because so many musicians already used it for commercial purposes. However Lalle's brilliant and subtle piano playing, only assisted by Richard Hallebeek on acoustic guitar and Jonas Reingold on his fretless bass, makes amply up for this defect and I have to admit that he succeeded in rendering a convincing adaptation of this too often played piece. Masterpiece of the album is the almost a quarter of an hour lasting title piece "Weaveworld" in which you can fully enjoy the complete musical language of Lalle Larrson. Weather he plays the organ, mistreats his synthesizer or caresses the keys of his acoustic piano, there is never a doubt that you're listening to a true keyboard wizard. His band moves perfectly through all beautiful themes that are displayed in this fantastic piece. It's incredible that they are only so little known. With Lalle Larrson we have a keyboard player that combines the aggressiveness of a Keith Emerson to the inventiveness of a Chick Corea and the subtleness of a Duke Ellington or a Claude Bolling, but above all we have to do with an original and true keyboard genius. Are there no disadvantages on this album? Yes, the execution of the cd-booklet is a bit on the lean side, but once you entered the disc in your player, that is soon forgotten. I think that "Weaveworld" should belong in the cd collection of everyone who considers himself a true lover of progressive keyboard orientated music. Lalle Larrson is still an underestimated talent who deserves to be discovered. The only fair judgement, especially when compared with the competition is a five star one !

Erik de Beer.

A lackluster album but not a lackluster effort, here we have a well-produced, well-played and well thought-out heap of utterly predictable music. Maybe I'm jaded, maybe I'm downright wrong, but the music here feels all too familiar and, at times, far too monotonous. Marionette and Dance of the Dead offer dull hooks woven into dull songs. Perhaps my issue with these songs is the amount of conviction. That being none. Despite this Newborn Awakening more than makes up for these lackluster efforts and offer renewed hope in an otherwise tedious album. This song alone seems to elevate my review at least one star, Adagio is mostly forgettable and Weaveworld is mildly interesting but, on the whole the entire album (sans. Newborn Awakening) feels extremely mediocre.

2.5 stars rounded up to three because Newborn Awakening is a 4 (possibly 5) star track that far surpasses the rest of the album.

Before I am going to write this review, I would like to ask permission from a certain mister Francis Murphy, recently better known under the name of FMX, who took the liberty of lecturing me about my review on Lalle Larsson's Infinity Of Worlds". He claims to recognize a masterpiece and denies others to recognize one. First of all: he claims that the least worse song on the album is called "Stony Days". There is no such tiltle on the album!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are illegally downloading, you shouldn't be allowed to write reviews!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Track number 4 is called "Beyond Shadows". I know this, because I BOUGHT the album in a shop, especially for cd's. Furthermore he claims, that he prefers the industrial noises of the final track!? Maybe he shouldn't be living in Ireland, but in Birmingham. He should love it there!! Furthermore, mister Murphy thinks IQ singer Peter Nicholls is a great singer? Peter Nicholls is probably a loverly little man (I have heard him both live and on cd), but let's be honest, he is singing completely out of tune. Now let's cut the small-talk and talk reviewing.

In my humble opinion Lalle Larsson is one of the most talented keyboard-players of this moment. He doesn't always produce progressive rock, but I don't consider that a crime, because there are more musical directions that deserve to be listenend to. On this first album of the Weaveworld trilogy Lalle has gathered around him a fantastic group of highly talented musicians, comprising the incredible talented Richard Hallebeek from the Netherlands for the more jazz-rock bases guitar parts, Stefan Rosqvist for the more heavy guitar parts, Jonas Reingold on bass and Walle Wahlgren on drums. This has resulted in an incredible well-played and versatile bandsound, leading to the masterpiece that is called "Weaveworld". It is not often, that such a talented jazz-pianist combines the skills of a complete piano-player to those of a gifted synthesizer-player, who knows how to program and pick the right sounds on an electronic keyboard.

The result is a perfectly balanced album, inclining heavily towards composed jazz-rock, both displaying fabulously well-composed themes to incredible virtuosity. Great jazz-virtuoso players like Duke Ellington and Jacques Loussier are easily equalled, while the dynamics of Weaveworld easily surpass most progressive rock albums. In other words: a masterpiece ! Compositions like "Marionette" and "Newborn Awakening" are masterpieces, both in composition and in technical playing. I would like to invite everyone, to take time and listen.

So, if it doesn't bother mister Murphy I am going to reward this album with five stars! (and I BOUGHT the album in the same shop as I bought all my cd's).

progpig66.