WHO'S THE BOSS IN THE FACTORY?

The not yet very long discography of Karmakanic shows an impressive improvement with each next release. And if the score for this album so far is not deceiving, you can't go wrong with this one. At this moment it's 4,57 from 15 ratings, that's promising at least. And I already have the two predecessors so I know what this band is about and what they are capable of. I have every confidence of having bought a winner here.

And so it proved to be I can already reveal. First song starts somewhat strange with a sweet singing little kid leaving you puzzled what it's all about. No worries, it only lasts a few seconds and after that it's entering paradise with an absolute masterpiece track called Send a Message from the Heart, a true epic in the style of Flower Kings. (I could swear I hear Roine Stolt sing and play the guitar here and there on this album but the booklet says he is only playing the guitar on one of the songs (Two Blocks) so I'm partly right and partly wrong here.) And I also would have put money on the guess he did some of the songwriting for this album. Wrong too, it's all Jonas' work (except the lyrics By Inge Ohlen R.). Well, both Jonas and Roine are in TFK so it's not really strange to make such a mistake. But with TFK 90% of the songs are from Roine so that's why I'm still a bit surprised. Especially this first song is so much like TFK, there is also lots of the sound of their previous album detectable and this can only mean it's excellent. More than excellent because Send a message .. can compete with the very best epics by TFK. So this is obvious 5* material. Also a lot better than the best songs by this band so far and I was already enthusiastic with mainly the second album, so...

Next up is the shorter Let in Hollywood, a song to wipe the sweat from your forehead and stop shaking. Although, not quite true, this one is less uplifting but still a very good track, lasting appr. 5 minutes, some heavy music with this one, a bit like Rush but better (4,25*).

After this the next masterpiece, the title track, starting quietly with piano and some darkish singing by the excellent vocalist, Goran Edman. After some 2,5 minutes a very recognizable chorus sets in played in typical Karmakanic style. This proves that Karmakanic is not a TFK clone, if it seemed like that by my comment in the first epic, I take that back. There are resemblances indeed but Karmakanic has still it's own sound and it's more present in this track than in the first one. After this vocal part, it's instrumental time and boy, do these guys know how to play them ! Bass, piano and lead guitar, it's all mindblowing stuff combined in a terrific composition. After about the 5th listening I'm absolutely convinced, this album has to be a masterpiece in my book and this song is partly responable for that (4,75*).

And it's almost as if the band must have thought: for those (fools) who still have doubts about the masterpiece status, we'll throw in another superb track. This one is called Two Blocks from the Edge and is probably the very best from the 3 crackers of this album. Again I get the feeling Roine is doing the singing in the beginning but it's Goran actually, I think they only sound the same when Goran sings softly. After 1,5 minutes you can hear this clearly. On this song Theo Travis does the saxophone in an excellent contribution. His bandmate from The Tangent Andy Tilison is also present in this Perfect Party I would like to call this album. Two of the best progmusicians around, so in fact it's not a surprise at all that this has become a mindblowing effort of an album. Huge guitarplaying by Krister Jonsson has also got to be mentioned. The climax of this track is reminiscent of Monsters & Men by TFK, more or less my most favourite song ever. Not strange that I can only give this 5 (6,7,8,etc) stars. Incredible stuff.

I'm running out of superlatives here, can't help it. This album is so 100% my cup of tea, even more than TFK and I never thought that could be possible. Maybe it's the combination of three supergroups (Karmakanic, TFK and The Tangent (both in line-up as in songstyle by the way) that is the secret here. I simply can not believe what I'm hearing. I'd better stop before I start crying or something. This must be one of the very very very best albums in my collection and I was already so satisfied so far with that. What more can I say ? This album also saves this almost mediocre prog year for me. A superb masterpiece at last. Thank you, Karmakanic !

PS I forgot the last two tracks of the album in my emotional outburst. Two quiet, almost ballad like melancholic songs (first a short instrumental, the second with great vocals). 4,25 and 4,5* respectively.