UNTIL ALL THE GHOSTS ARE GONE

A couple of years back, I purchased "Nucleus", Anekdoten's second album I believe. I found I really liked some tracks and always thought to someday grab another album. Then one day in 2015, I saw that the band had a new album out and I decided to grab it and check it out.

The opening track "Shooting Star" is quite a surprise. It sounds a lot like some recent Opeth and in fact, a couple of times that I've had this song and some from Opeth's "Pale Communion" on a mixed playlist and on shuffle, I actually mistook this song for an Opeth song at first. It's an excellent opening to the album and I can't help but notice the smoother and warmer sound compared to the sometimes crushing and pulverizing sounds on "Nucleus". This song has become a favourite off the album.

The final track too is a memorable one. "Our Days are Numbered" is an instrumental with more heavy guitar but a lighter, atmospheric part with some saxophone before coming to a dramatic finale. It's an instrumental with moods and tension. Great work!

Unfortunately, I keep fading out during the four songs in between. I understand that this is a top rated album of 2015 and I even read a raving review praising this album to high heaven. But I'm afraid that I can't find and become absorbed by the genius music that many others are claiming in there. There's supposed to be this totally far out guitar solo packed with sweet emotion on "Get Out Alive". Yes, the song really comes out strong in the second half and builds nicely in the first. But I am not totally blown away. "If It All Comes Down to You" includes some lovely flute and Mellotron. It should be really marvellous and listening to it now on my iPhone without headphones it is indeed very beautiful.

But I've tried to listen to this album through a few times and my attention always wanders. What's wrong? It sounds like it should be a great album to me. Is it Nicklas Barker's vocals, which aren't exactly the strongest in progland? No, I can get along with the vocals, especially since there's so much instrumental work. What is it then?

Well, I listened on the way home tonight and I think I know what's missing. I heard someone say recently, "Have you ever had an album ruined for you for one thing and that one thing only?" My impression is that this album isn't mixed very well. I find the sound murky and thick. Turning up the volume usually helps in these cases but it still seems to me that the middle songs especially just don't sound as clear as they should. Listening to recent albums by Opeth, Pandora Snail, or Nice Beaver for example, the music is just so warm and rich in sound. That's lacking here and I think that's why my mind keeps losing focus and I don't know what I've just listened to.

Yeah, I'm listening one more time to "Writing On the Wall" now without the ear buds in and the music sounds better like this actually. I can see why some people rate the music of this album so high. As for me, I would really like to have heard a clearer, cleaner production of the sound here.

Surely a great album that happens to be suffering a bit from the mixed sound of the music. Four stars knocked down to three.