ALIAS DRIVKRAFT

Second official album from the group, now presenting lyrics in musicians' mother tongue Swedish. This is nice, I like honest approach and Swedish is pleasant to listen, though understanding is little more different than English or Finnish to me. Both sound production and album cover art are now very professional. As quick analysis of the songs; First track is quite commercial sounding with some intelligent twists on rhythm arrangements. This is followed by a groovy rocker with neat rhythm twists. Then an open mantra introduces the longest track in the album, "Utbränd". The singing feels like a weak link here to me, though the composition is otherwise quite good. Phases with male/female vocals are nicest I think. Then follows a nice pleasant tune with acoustic drive. Great rhythm guitar pushes forward "Begagnat liv", little minor oriented rocker, which is a very good song. Last track is also moody stuff with sax, another good long track, though some changes it don't feel totally logical. Not bad though. Stylistically not my" favorite dish", but pleasant to listen still. If commercial slightly neo- proggish stuff with Swedish lyrics sounds an interesting combo, try this, it is very well done album. Fine and delicate arrangements are a trademark of this group too in my opinion.

Here's another obscure Finnish prog band, the only Swedish speaking one that I have come across this far besides Opus Symbiosis. Also the lyrics on this album (and the next one) are in Swedish whereas their debut was sung in English. That's not a problem per se - even though I hated the language back in school - but unfortunately the uninteresting vocals are heavily present in the music. The male vocalist has an 'unprofessional', honest and amateurish style common in folk music, which this music isn't otherwise all the time (to some extent definitely, even including appearances of bouzouki and violin). It is a mixture of vocal-oriented pop and retro-sounding prog. The progness lies mostly in rhythmic complexity and versatile arrangements on shorter tracks - four of them out of six. Here and there they have also instrumental sections that improve them a lot, but the joy is often interrupted by the return of chorus-repeating song structure.

The two 10-11 minute tracks are clearly the highlights and they notably increase the progressivity. 'Utbränd' may have a slight sense of uncoherence but it has some very nice sections, featuring a female background vocalist (why not more on the whole album?). Electric guitar is a central instrument in the band sound. Keyboards lean nicely on the retro vintage style and the aforementioned additional instruments plus trumpet add to the colour. Hmm, this would be pretty interesting group if only the vocals didn't have so big role. Or if they had a better singer. Summa summarum: nice if you like the retro feel and folkiness, but quite forgettable in this vast prog universe.