JENS JOHANSSON

Heavy Prog!

This album is the second one that the two brothers, keyboardist Jens and drummer Anders Johansson, made together. For those of you who don't know the history of these guys, they both used to play in Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force in the 80's. Malmsteen also plays on this album as a guest, which is very interesting since this is a very different kind of music compared to that of Rising Force. The Johansson brothers have a much wider set of influences that stretches far beyond the narrow boundaries of metal music. This can be seen on their (especially Jens') extremely diverse output. The influences on this particular album are Jazz and Classical music as well as classic bluesy hard rock. I would probably put this album in the Heavy Prog category.

The Johansson brothers are obviously very skilled on their respective instruments and the guitar shredding of Malmsteen is clearly recognizable, but quite sparse ? he appears only in a couple of the songs. The overall sound is strongly dominated by keyboards, drums, bass and vocals with some guitar solos (not all played by Malmsteen). The keyboards are mainly organ, synthesisers, some piano and (something that sounds like) a harpsichord (even if I'm pretty sure that it is produced with electronic keyboards).

The vocals are very bluesy and almost soulful and would fit in any classic bluesy hard rock band. Deep Purple might come to mind, but the music on Sonic Winter is more melodic during the vocal parts and more progressive and jazzy in the instrumental parts. The longer tracks are instrumentals and consist mainly of some very good instrumental workout. Still, this is not an album concerned just with showing off chops. The shorter songs are based on melody and not on instrumental workout. Most of the many keyboard solos are appropriate within the context of the songs and never too excessive.

There is here a nice balance between bluesy hard rock songs with some quirks, and more experimental instrumentals. The various influences are perhaps not as well integrated as they might have been, but this is a worthwhile album.

Good, but non-essential!

The last of it's kind

The two brothers, keyboardist Jens and drummer Anders Johansson, has so far made three albums together (plus one together with guitarist Allan Holdsworth). The Last Viking was the last one they did and this one is quite different from the others. The Last Viking is clearly less jazzy and also, at least on the surface, less progressive than the two other Johansson Brothers albums and even more so compared to the straightforward Jazz-Rock of Heavy Machinery (the one they did with Holdsworth). But The Last Viking is also more consistent and, on the whole, much better in my opinion.

For those of you who don't know the history of these guys, they both used to play in Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force in the 80's. For this album they enlisted Mike Romeo from Symphony X on guitars and Göran Edholm on vocals. The former is strongly influenced by Malmsteen's playing and the latter also used to sing for Malmsteen. But even if The Last Viking has some minor similarities with Yngwie Malmsteen's music, and also to that of Symphony X, these influences are not too apparent. The Last Viking has a much warmer and melodic sound that would be foreign to these metal bands, and the Johansson brothers have a much wider set of influences that stretches far beyond the narrow boundaries of metal music. This can be seen on their (especially Jens') extremely diverse output.

The Johansson brothers are obviously very skilled on their respective instruments and Romeo is a great guitar player, but this is not an album based on shredding and showing off chops. On the contrary, these songs are strongly based on melody and not on instrumental workout. They do burst out in many short, often extremely fast paced and impressive keyboard and guitar solos, but these are always appropriate within the context of the songs and never excessive. It is also clear that the three instrumentalists work together, and it is never a matter of just providing a backdrop for only one of them to show off. The instrumentalists share about equal space in the sound, which I like a lot.

We find here a very nice balance between up tempo songs, ballads and instrumentals. The material is very melodic. The ballads and the two instrumentals are great counterpoints to the more fast paced metal songs. On the surface this is rather conventional 80's metal, but at the same time it is not conventional at all. Below the surface we find a rich sonic palette and a strong sense of melody. The Jazz and Blues influences of earlier Johansson Brothers albums are almost gone, as are the more experimental edge, but there are still strong Classical influences here. Many would probably find this music a bit cheesy, but I find it cute and charming. I must say that I like this album a lot more than I like Symphony X or most of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force's output.

Many progressive rock and metal fans probably notice that the songs here are rather short, but song length is not a necessary feature of progressive rock music. Is this Prog? Prog Metal? Or just conventional 80's metal with some progressive influences? I'm not sure, but I am pretty sure that this can appeal to many fans of these genres.

The vocals are very good and In The Mirror especially has excellent harmony vocals. The lyrics are perhaps not too interesting and are often about love and man's relation with nature (and Vikings?!). Again, some would find this cheesy, but I find it rather charming. You cannot take it too seriously, as I'm sure they don't do themselves! The keyboards sound like organs, pianos and harpsichords (even if I'm pretty sure that everything is produced with electronic keyboards). Everything has a sound that I do not recognize from somewhere else.

I enjoy this album! Give it a try!

Maybe I shouldn't review an album like this that I simply don't bother to listen to more than once, pressing the NEXT button several times to make it a quicker task. There is a type of music that everytime seems to leave me cold, and if it could be summarized in a word, I guess the word would be JAMMING. A kind of music where the emphasis is in the technically superb playing itself, not in the contents of the music, ie. emotions, if you like. (This holds true to 'art music' as well: a virtuoso Paganini violin solo is pure torture to me!) Here you hear a power trio of a drummer, a guitarist (Allan Holdsworth, who is considered as one of the top axemen in the rock/jazz world) and a keyboard player (with a heavy rock background). All the tracks seem to be in the same vein, fast and tight playing. "Modal groove riff sequences with long improvized stretches", right. Not my cup of tea.

This is one of those special projects that doesn't happen often, when a few marvelous players get together to do a truly liberated collection of music. The Johansson Brothers (Sweden) have been making great heavy prog for years with many top people and this is one of the best documents of that run, putting Jens (keys), Anders (drums) and master axeman Allan Holdsworth in the same room to weave some spankin' progressive jams. This mercurial combination makes Heavy Machinery one of the hottest and hippest instrumental CDs around.