HEJ PÅ ER

In October 1976 Trettioariga Kriget hit the road for an extensive tour throughout England, visiting also Wales and reaching the Scottish borders.The ''Melody Maker'' magazine chose the band among the very promosing rising Rock groups, but to their surprise they were dumbed by CBS upon returning to Sweden.They signed with the newly formed Mistlur label, while keyboardist Mats Lindberg, who helped the band in the previous albums, became a permanent member (I wonder if he was the same guy playing the bass for Kaipa around the same time).Third work by Trettioariga Kriget came out in 1978 under the title ''Hej pa er''.

Featuring a full-time keyboardist, one would expect from the sound of the Swedish to become a little more keyboard-centered, but apparently that never happened.Instead they remained one hard-hitting Prog/Rock act with emphasis on double guitars texts, while the tracks became more conventional with limited progressive moves and more strsightforward songwriting.But the quality of the compositions hasn't dropped a bit, the guys created a set of great Hard Rock songs with some notable progressive tendencies and a furious energy and poetic lyricism.No track exceeds the 5-min. mark, the material here is definitely an affair between Hard and Psychedelic Rock with Mats Lindberg providing the occasional keyboard support, mainly on synthesizer, organ and clavinet.Series of fiery riffs, some extremely beautiful Nordic-styled soloing and a few complex twists, reminding of the band's most progressive values are the basic elements of this work, while several tracks escape from the raw stylings of guitar-dominated sound to become a little more refined and epic via the use of keyboards.Linberg also provides some nice sax lines in a pair of them and the overall sound sits somewhere between WISHBONE ASH and late-70's CAMEL, although the Scandinavian taste always comes on surface due to the use of Swedish lyrics.

Very nice and rockin' stuff.It holds some of the band's previous artistic values, but the focus here is on electrified textures and dynamic guitar workouts with a nice keyboard background.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.