SPACE REVOLVER

Many people say that this was their best album ever. But I've to say although it certainly features some of their best songs like "I Am The Sun" and "Monster Within" and one of their weirdest (and best) "Rumble Fish Twist"", it has as well some of their weakest ones ("You Don't Know ..." and "Chicken Farmer Song"). Nevertheless thanks to the new addition Jonas Reingold there are also some of their best bass solos so far on here. I'll try to go through it track by track:

I AM THE SUN (PART ONE)

Part one of the longtrack starts with a quite TFK-typical symphonic intro changing to a more rocking guitar riff.The song offers a lot of diversity, everything a prog fan's heart desires, atmospheric keyboards parts, hard rocking ones and great jazzy sections with an awesome soprano sax. After about eight minutes we have a magnificent jazz fusion section with some weird reversed vocal samples, really GREAT!!!

DREAMER

This is as the title implies a very dreamy, atmospheric and a very short one with soprano sax and great bass play by Jonas Reingold. This brilliant and passionate musician was really a great addition for the band.

RUMBLE FISH TWIST

An ingenious track and one highlight of the album, something so weird, spacey, jazzy and great I never heard from them before. Jonas' jazzy bass solo is just amazing and the sampled live atmosphere fits perfectly. After the quite chaotic beginning it moves into a very beautiful atmospheric second part.

MONSTER WITHIN

Here we have already the next highlight which is quite strange and weird in some parts and starts with strings, harps and bells. Suddenly it moves into a complete different direction with evil sounding vocal samples and powerful guitar riffs. A bit later a hymnic organ sound is leading into another more jazzy section. Very strong track with many mood and rhythm shifts.

CHICKEN FARMER SONG

This is the first one of two very weak songs, but still not as bad as You Don't Know.... At this moment the so far quite high level of the album drops down significantly. It's just a "happy La-la-la song", I cannot say more about it.

UNDERDOG

After starting a bit weak and non-impressing this song is developing into a quite good one in its course with wonderful vocal harmonies and a rather chaotic and dissonant ending.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT

This is IMHO the worst song they did EVER and the good thing: it's the shortest one! I don't like to lose any words about it.

SLAVE TO MONEY

is like Underdog as well a song which is getting better after a while, but still I would add it to the weaker ones of this album. The last two minutes are quite good with great guitar play.

A KING'S PRAYER

is a very lush song with very good vocals by Roine Stolt and Hasse Froberg , maybe a bit too much like sob stuff (at least for my ears), but as a "reward" there is one of Roine's great solos after.

I AM THE SUN (PART TWO)

starts in fact very different from the first part a bit insipidly in some way but turns back to the main theme later on and it's fading out in a rather long very good instrumental part.

CONCLUSION:

The first half of the album is excellent and would definitely deserve 4 stars. Unfortunately this high standard can't be kept over the whole and there are two really weak songs on the second half. Overall 3,5 stars would be adequate!

(Edited 7/27/2006)