MINDREVOLUTIONS

Being in the presumption that this Kaipa still had a lot to do with Kaipa of the seventies I bought this album. Well, not that I'm too familiar with that ancient Kaipa but I checked out the streamsong Se Var Morgen Gry one day and it sounded pretty much ok to me. Second reason for buying this album was the presence of a huge epic of some 25 min. Most of the time these are worthwhile and maybe there was even a third reason and that was the connection with my all time favourite band Flower Kings.

Three good reasons you would think but at the end of the day it's all about this Kaipa right now and what kind of compositions they come up with. First: this Kaipa has nothing to do with Kaipa of the seventies, well nothing, Lundin and Stolt were in it back then and they are with the band still but actually that's all. Because the compositions have no comparison with those of the old days. It's mainly the vocals that make all the difference. With no less than 4 out of the 6 bandmembers being responsable for nowadays vocals it is no surprise that these are dominant in all the songs. In fact it's not even the problem that they sing poorly but they (particularly Lundstrom and Aleena) have a bit of those love or hate kind of voices (listen to the first two minutes of the epical title track and you will know what I mean). Probably they have their fans out there nevertheless but alas I'm not one of them.

In fact that sums up the whole story for me about the rating because this aspect is setting the standard and judgement for me in this case. Instrumentally there's not much wrong with most of the songs and the compositions are not bad either but as I said, if the vocals determine some 75% of the sound of the band and album, the rest can be as good as possible but it can not be saved any more. For me it's a sort of deja vu for what I did with the Shakary album, didn't like his voice either and the rest actually didn't really matter any more.

Sounds harsh but the truth has to be said. For if because of it all you don't even feel like playing the disc anymore it's not possible to come up with a higher score than 2 stars. Good lesson for me as well to not buy too quickly anymore without even listening in the store and going blind for it due to some presumptions.