VILJANS ÖGA

After nearly two decades , Anglagard still can really impress. "Viljans Oga" is an excellent album, it has the same quality of "Epilog" and is almost comparable to "Hybris", which in my opinion remains their unsurpassed masterpiece.

It is a totally instrumental album with four long compositions that recall the style of the great masters of '70s progressive; influences of King Crimson, Genesis and Yes are evident, as always, but this time the songs reminds me very much the style of Magma and other experimental jazz-rock band from Canterbury (Soft Machine, Henry Cow, Hatfield And The North).

The song structure is extremely complex, even more than in the previous albums. It is a very difficult album to digest and you may not like it at first listen; after three or four listening, however, emerges the real value of masterpieces as Sorgmantel (full of virtuosity and jazz-oriented, with a great crescendo in the central section, around minute 7) and Snardom (the second half of the song is amazing, with a beautiful romantic theme that closely resembles the Italian progressive and PFM in particular).

There are incredible rhythmic variation (the work of Mattias Olsson on drums is really breathtaking), romantic atmosphere with mellotron, cello and flute in evidence, and finally the hardest moments, that are very reminiscent of King Crimson in the Fripp-Wetton-Bruford era.

Needless to say, this is a must-have album, not only if you are a great fan of this band. Despite some short drop in quality here and there (sometimes the technical and spectacular virtuosity causes a little coldness), all the songs are interesting. It is one of those albums that I always doubt whether to assign a rating of four or five stars (a really 4,5 stars).

Final rating: 8/10.

Best song: Sorgmantel

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