LAND OF THE SUN

I finally got to review this fine album.

Fatal Fusion is a Norwegian band, and a newcomer in the Progressive Rock-world, though the group have existed since 2008. The musicians have played in quite a lot of different bands over the years, though in quite uknown bands, and got together and founded THIS great band.

This is their debut album, and what a fine album it is! The band is on fire, and are exploding in a mixture of different styles over the entire album. There are elements of Jazz, Blues, Hard Rock, Classical music, Space rock, Metal, and even Latin. There are so many different styles, even in ONE song, and because of that this record never gets boring!

The title track is a classic pro song, flowing really well, with a nice jazzy/funky 7/8 halftime groove with a beautiful melody sung over it. Bass & drums working very good together here. There are some tricky time signatures here, from the 7/8 groove to waltz 6/8, but curiously enough it doesn't sound weird, it's flowing really well. Great guitar solo over a Classical piano part, with Mellotron in the background, ending in a really hard & heavy Latin groove with pounding double bassdrums and a spectacular keyboard solo. Really nice Jazzy ending as well, with great Fusion-type drumming. Great lyrics, dealing with the Astec and Maya indians being slayed by the Spaniards.

"Cry no more" is very much like Led Zepps "Black Dog" and even some "Moby Dick" Could as well have been a Deep Purple tune from the David Coverdale-era.

"Promises" is another great tune. Drenshed in Hammond organ & Mellotron, this song starts with a kind of Medievel melody on a flute, and ends up in Prog-Rock-heaven. Awesome ending!

"Love in the sky" could easily have been on a Rainbow or Dio album, with some Iron Maiden like vibes as well. Again the Mellotron is up front, creating an Eastern and Classical vibe to it. Great dramatic guitar solo on this one, very Eastern and psychedelic. A killer Organ-solo in the end, very Keith Emerson and Jon Lord-like.

"Shot to the ground" is a Hard-Rock-Blues number that sucks you in and never lets go. The groove is relentless, and again very much like Led Zepp and similar 70's bands. Great vocals on this one.

"Remember" is the only ballad on the album, and a quite nice one. Erlend Engebretsen uses mainly piano through the whole song, with the addition of Mellotron on the chorus. Nice mellow song, and a sad ending with just piano and Mellotron-chello to great effect.

With the epic "Broken man" is were the band gets really serious and proggy. Almost 13 minutes long, it's a rollercoaster ride of different time signatures and styles. 5/8 rythm in the verses, 6/8 rythm in the bridge sections, again blending with Latin to great effect. Beautifully played acoustic guitar here, from guitarist Stig Selnes. A sad middle part with an outstanding guitar solo, very David Gilmour-like. Goosebumps city. An agressive Latin-ish part follows, very Rush-like rythms and groove, followed by a Rhodes piano solo from Erlend and awesome Fusion-drumming from Audun Engebretsen. Great ending, with great powerful harmony singing on the choruses. An epic song, with great lyrics about a guy being hanged for something he didn't do.

Ending perfectly with "Out to the fields", an epic Space-rock instrumental were the musicians really stetches out, jam and have fun. The song is like a mixture of Dream Theater and Pink Floyd, in a strange way. Pink Floyd comes to mind especially in the middle part were it goes really spacey. Awesome guitar solo, again a la Gilmour. Some really agressive Space-War-like parts with cool sound effects behing the music, making it more dramatic, with strange time-signatures alterning between double-time 4/4 and 7/8 rythm. An epic ending a la Pink Floyd's "Echoes" wraps up this album quite nicely.

Overall: 4,5 stars, and an impressive debut album. Looking forward to hear what these guys will do next. An essential album in the Progressive Rock collection.

Norwegian band FATAL FUSION was formed in 2008 by a fivesome of musicians who had plied their trade in various bands since the 1990's or thereabouts, who then got together out of a joint desire to create music that crossed multiple stylistic boundaries and also incorporated the styles and sounds of bands from the 70's and 80's they enjoy listening to. "Land of the Sun" is their debut album and was self-released towards the end of 2010.

"Land of the Sun" is a solid package of retro-oriented progressive rock with a slight emphasis on the harder-edged variety, sporting three high-quality epic or near-epic-length creations and a handful of shorter constructions containing slightly less intriguing material. At least for art rock fans, those fond of sophisticated harder-edged blues rock will most likely reason the other way around. If you enjoy 70's-style art rock, the 35 or so minutes that those three pieces clock in at in length will make this a disc well worth investigating, and if you have a soft spot for sophisticated but varied harder-edged rock from the same era, Fatal Fusion is a band you most likely will adore. A skilled and talented act, one I hope we'll hear much more from it in future years.

Norwegian band from Oslo with a strong Blues Rock background.Keyboardist Erlend Engebretsen and bassist Lasse Lie played together in the 80's cover band ''No Name'' and later with ''Moonstone'' along with Erlend's brother Audun on drums.Failing to land a decent singer, this group disbanded in 1999 and in 2002 the trio formed another cover combo under the name of Chrystal Blues.Five years later this act would also fall apart due to singer problems and a desire for more adventurous musical paths.Thus, Fatal Fusion were born in 2008 and the three musicians recruited singer Knut Erik Grontvedt, followed by guitarist Stig Selnes, who had been a member of the Prog Metal band Agate.In 2010 Fatal Fusion debuted with their first, independent release ''Land of the sun''.

While the bluesy influences of the group's main core have been left more or less in the past, the evident 70's Classic Rock inspirations are definitely among Fatal Fusion's preferable styles, especially the music of DEEP PURPLE, LED ZEPPELIN and URIAH HEEP.As a result the shorter tracks reveal a definite vintage power akin to the aforementioned legends with punchy lead guitars and rock-to-the-bone solos as well as deep Hammond organ washes, while you should add to the menu the very Hard Rock-oriented voice of Grontvedt.Entertaining, enjoyable but not fully convincing material, which fails to escape from its own sources of influence.The longer cuts though are much more interesting, musically intricate and quite lyrical when needed, without losing the general orientation of the group or any inch of the pure power of the previous tracks.The sound becomes richer and more original with the use of Mellotron, electric piano and synthesizers and the combination of in-your-face rockin' grooves with more elaborate, instrumental arrangements ranges from decent to simply fascinating.Moreover there seems to be a flexibility throughout the compositions with spacey/symphonic ambiental textures followed by jazzier moves and a kind of deep FLOYD-ian atmosphere in the more sensitive guitar solos.These different angles are nicely connected to form long and interesting semi-prog suites like the 12-min. ''Broken man'' or the great 16-min. opus ''Out to the fields'', where melody meets energy meets atmosphere in a lovely combination of modern and nostalgic, analog soundbeats.

Nice and fairly recommended debut by this Norwegian act.70's-inspired Heavy Prog, where grandieur meets pomposity meets pure rock power in a collection of well-executed tracks.

For the recent years now Norway is pumping out a plethora of very good groups and FATAL FUSION was no exception. On their debut CD 'Land Of The Sun' (2010) this five-piece covers a varied assortment of styles: classic hard-rock and neo-prog, funk and latino, space and jazz, blues and classical music. Just try to imagine a melting pot of Atomic Rooster, classic Deep Purple, early Marillion, psychedelic traits of Pink Floyd, at times - Carlos Santana and King Crimson, and you should understand the approach of Fatal Fusion. Skillfully balancing with tempos, fusing the loud elements and gentle ingredients, using delicious guitar playing and vintage keyboards (Hammond, Moog, Mellotron), raging bass and drums, these Norse went out to reveal a quite unique progressive product. Sure, the great asset to band's originality lies in ability of singer Knut Erik Grøntvedt to combine his bluesy timbre with a bitter-sweet performance. Each of the 7 cuts on the album has a style of its own, whilst maintaining an organic cohesion. Impressive stuff, indeed. So.. I just hope that my brief comment will induce some additional interest in what FF are doing.