FROM WITHIN

From Within, the third album from Swedish band Anekdoten saw them moving away from the King Crimson influences that had been highly characteristic of their early work. The same instrumentation is present including Anna Sofi Dahlberg's ever present and wonderful mellotron playing but the music despite having some powerful moments takes a somewhat mellower turn.

The music exchanges the in your face angular riffing that was characteristic of much of Vemod and in particular Nucleus for more atmospheric and melancholic songs. Of course moments like these have been present on past Anekdoten releases but here it is more prevalent and refined. Where lesser bands might bore you to death they have mastered a knack of locking into a repetitive groove that creates enough tension with subtle changes to maintain the listeners' interest. None better to demonstrate this than Hole which while being a song displaying dynamics where more bombastic sections collide with ethereal beauty it's the haunting and repetitive instrumental mid section that really makes the song work as you wait for it to explode back into life again. Wonderful stuff.

Fans of Nucleus won't be disappointed though as Slow Fire displays a powerful riff that would sit comfortably alongside anything on that landmark release. In the main though the music here is about creating grooves, not complex, but with lots of subtle inflections alongside the melancholic melodies. The Sun Absolute deserves special mention; a pulsing bass line drives the hypnotic groove of this brilliant instrumental along as it slowly builds into more powerful mellotron soaked territory.

Anekdoten have to be applauded for not resting on their laurels and producing Nucleus part 2. This is truly progressive music and despite being a different beast to Nucleus it is the equal of that essential prog masterpiece. Now how may bands can claim to have released 2 consecutive 5 star releases? Not many I would guess.