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Atlas - Blå Vardag CD (album) cover

BLÅ VARDAG

Atlas

 

Symphonic Prog

4.18 | 224 ratings

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Progfan97402
Prog Reviewer
4 stars I finally got a copy of Atlas' Blå Vardag and it's been on my want list for years. I first heard about them in a mail order catalog selling a copy of this as a CD reissue on the Ad Perpetuam Memoriam around 1996. Never bought it at the time, perhaps the 1979 year of release scared me off. Never got the CD reissue but I did manage to get the original Bellatrix label LP which is incredible difficult to get a hold of but while not cheap, the prices hadn't gone through the roof either. The band consisted of two keyboardists with Erik Björn Nielsen and Björn Ekbom, with guitarist Janne Persson, bassist Uffe Hedlund, and drummer Micke Pinotti. These guys looked like they were still teenagers, and I wouldn't even be surprised if some of them weren't even 18 yet (although the band apparently formed in 1974 so they were probably older than they appear on the photos of the original inner sleeve). This is rather mellow and relaxed prog that's not unlike the mellower end of Focus and Camel circa Snow Goose, Moonmadness and Rain Dances. Lots of organ, piano, Moog, electric piano and a small amount of Mellotron. There's only five pieces, the first two "Elisabeten" and "På Gata" are Atlas in a nutshell. There is nothing really heavy about the music, but it's really nice to hear. The music has a more mid 1970s vibe than a late '70s, they really didn't touch new polyphonic synthesizers that were hitting the market at the time. The second half of the album demonstrated a more jazzy side of the band, with the electric piano more dominant. There the Camel of Rain Dances can be valid, along with a bit of Canterbury. They also get compared to Kaipa and I can see that, but this is all-instrumental so those put off by Swedish vocals in prog can relax. When I first hear it I thought it meanders a bit in places, and sometimes I still think that way but there are plenty of brilliant passages to be heard. Not exactly the greatest obscure prog rock album ever made, but it's certainly worth having in your collection.
Progfan97402 | 4/5 |

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