BURIED ALIVE

At the end of this gig - the last Änglagård would play for some time (but not forever) - the band left the stage in tears. After reading the previous statement, you may be thinking, "Well it was the end of a brief, but impressive career. No wonder they were crying - it was an emotional time." However, the cause for tears was not the emotion of their last concert, but the fact that they had all left the stage with an incredible amount of disapointment and regret for not playing better than they had. Thomas Johnson (Piano, Keyboards, et cetera) had afterward said, "How can an entire crowd be ironic at the same time?" I think that Johnson is overstating the shortcomings of this album, but at the same time, it was quite disapointing for many reasons.

The faults were very numbered. There's sloppy guitar work, the drumming isn't quite as good as the studio versions' (but also, the percussion - as opposed to drums - is great). The crowd is annoying at times, most of the songs sound too similar to the studio version to be worth listening to often. Volume is all over the place. Here's an example of that last one: Jordök's solemn and intriguing piano opening is so quiet that you nearly have to crank the volume of your stereo to hear it properly, and then (unexpectantly for those who are not overly familiar with Änglagård's Hybris album) blaring bass and drums explode. There also a few minor timing issues, but that is easily overlooked. The singing is also very poor compared to the studio versions', which wasn't fantastic to begin with.

Of course, Änglagård's music is just so well written that this album isn't really a complete waste of time. The studio versions are all much better: smoother, more fluent, and have better sound quality. However, to that crazy Änglagård fan among us, who absolutely MUST own ever single artifact that has anything to do with Änglagård, to you I say: this album will make you very glad. To all those who concider themselves casual fans of Änglagård, perhaps you need not buy this album straight away, but do not think of it as terrible by any means. It's simply not Änglagård's best.