LET ALL MEN KNOW - THIS IS SACRED GROUND

Usually I like bands like Pax Romana. When you look at the pictures of such bands you realize that they are not young guys beginning their journey in the music world and learning alongside. No! They are in fact grown up men that have a really big passion for the music. And that's why they never gave up the dream of playing.

Such bands usually play and write with passion and their albums show that. Is this the case of the Finnish band Pax Romana? I believe so!

Pax Romana was formed back in the 70's and they were around for a couple of years but life carried each member away. After 30 years, in 2002, the members of the band got together again with the idea of re-forming the band and finally, record albums. That happened 3 years later with their first album Trace Of Light (2005), then 4 years later And The Dance Begins Again (2009). And then came their latest album Let All Men Know - This Is Sacred Ground (2012), released by the Finnish duo Presence Records and Running Moose. The album was recorded between the years of 2011 and 2012. This just confirms what I said earlier, no rushing to release albums and not doing it for commercial purposes.

First thing you can notice in the Pax Romana s music is that they're a big, mixed bag of influences. Prog Rock is certainly one of them, but folk Finnish music and Pop Rock songs are not far away from the band.

Two more things make Pax Romana s sound interesting. First of all, the fact they have in their line up Kalle Fält, a saxophone/clarinet player. This makes the sound of the band gain a new dimension and new colours. Second of all, they have two vocalists. Matti Kervinen (vocals and keyboards) and Matti Inkinen (vocals and guitars). For me bands that share vocals are always more interesting and have big canvas to paint on. Jouko Höytämö (drums), Ilpo Komulainen (bass) and Jukka Höytämö (guitars) complete the band.

Let All Men Know - This Is Sacred Ground (2012) is a calm and beautiful album. One cannot say that Pax Romana does exclusively Prog Rock, their sound is broader than that. 3 of the tracks are more Prog: 'Screaming Heads (Vox Humana)', 'Acheron' (great track by the way) and the title track. They make the journey a bit more Symphonic and enigmatic.

'Batman' and 'Danish Blues are folk songs. The first with flavors that for me, looked like folk Finnish music, but I may be completely wrong. The second is a beautiful piece of music that has Neil Young as a big influence.

In the Pop field they have some Beatles influence in 'Second To None'. 'Soul Basement' is pure pop flavored. 'God's Fruit' begins as a serious Prog, tough it changes a lot when the singing begins. The change in the last track 'Blind Eye' shows us how nice it is for a band to have two singers. Great final track.

Let All Men Know - This Is Sacred Ground (2012) is an album full of soul of good and experienced musicians, in music and life. Guitar solos full of feeling, a good production and a nice and calm track selection is what awaits for you. If you're not a Prog Psycho that likes to lighten up a bit your day, Pax Romana is your best choice!

(Originally posted on progshine.net)

Well, this album is a bit of a mixed bag for me. This is definitely neo-prog with some classical influence. So far, so good. The synth work here is outstanding, and there are plenty of synth solos to feed the strange synth-hunger I have. I was also impressed by the vocalist's tone. It is quite deep, smooth, and a little bassy. I was somewhat surprised at this because it seems out of character for most neo-prog. I was also impressed with the great sax throughout the album. I've been developing my love for sax over the past couple years, and this album has some of the best I've heard.

However, I feel that there are some basic issues with this album. First of all, it's cheesy. I found the lyrics to be cheesy even though the basic theme is nice. There just seem to be a lot of cliches throughout this album, and also a lot of overly predictable chord progressions and REALLY simplistic drums. In fact, some of the songs don't even seem like they are prog at all. Some of these songs sound more like soft rock from the 80s or something. I usually don't like to scrutinize music like that, but this album just seems lazy at points, especially the last half. However, at other times, this album wows the listener. So, I think this is an easy 3 stars.

I have similar feelings about this album as Second Life Syndrome. It's definitely true that many of the songs are not prog at all, and there are lots of predictable chord progressions and extremely simplistic drums. Also I had some associations towards 80's soft, folkish rock. For the most part this is a fairly enjoyable, peaceful album and shouldn't be criticized just for not being more progressive. Anyway I have much better memories from their two earlier albums. And The Dance Begins Again (2009) included some really great tracks with spacey Pink Floyd influence, whereas this remains more in the "nice" department.

The keyboard player Matti Kervinen's warm baritone voice is featured on most tracks, so let's start with the rest. The title track is the only instrumental, not memorable but quite beautiful. I think it's one of the tracks that get better with multiple listenings which can't be said of the whole album. 'Batman' is a simple acoustic song about a superhero tired of chasing bad guys, sung by Matti Inkinen who has a very dry, sort of out-of-breath voice (distantly related to Tom Waits or Don Henley of The Eagles but more fragile). Musically this song and the other Inkinen ballad 'Danish Lullaby' are close to Neil Young at his folkiest. Inkinen sings also on the closing and more rocking song 'Blind Eye' which is the longest at 6:15. One of the better actually. Towards the album's end I got some brief associations to Roger Waters' Amused To Death (1992), the beginnings of 'It's a Miracle' and 'Amused to Death' to be more precise. Besides, Kervinen as a vocalist is perhaps a cross between the greying R. Waters at his most intimate and David Gilmour in his later days.

The weakest track is definitely the poppy 'Soul Basement'; without it the album would be a bit better. All the others are, as I said, nice. Kalle Fält's saxophone adds very good colour to the sound. This is not PAX ROMANA at their best but a nice, modest, honest, mellow album with its little faults.