VYAKHYAN-KAR

Jonas Hellborg changed directions almost completely with "Art Metal". Instead of going south with Indian/oriental elements, he takes the western and northern pavement to go further away from jazz and oscillate between metal/fusion/world music. You can still hear kanjeera as an Indian instrument but it is not dominant among agressive electric guitar, bass and drums being all over. Electric guitar is powerful and fast playing but quite different from Shawn Lane's licks. Eklundh reminds me a bit of Holdsworth by the way he is soloing although the guitar sound is rougher. Hellborg bass is quite fierce and he uses sometimes slapping technique to be more dynamic. Keyboards are very welcome mainly as accompanying instrument after quite many years without them.

Compositions are actually quite memorable, it's not a jam session/improvisation type of album where musicians meet and start recording at once. One of the best tracks to feature Hellborg's soloing technique is "The three princes of Seredip". The title track combines Indian, metal and mellower sections together, I love the combination of Indian percussions, loud bass guitar but less the raw riff driven electric guitar.

A very original and pretty solid metal fusion album.