HYBRIS

Debut album by this much praised swedish band. Hybris show taht the band is deeply rooted to the classic symphonic prog music of the 70´s. Obviously their biggest influence is King Crimson (around the time of Starless and Bible Black to be preciser), but there are also echoes of Yes, Gentle Giant and Genesis in several parts. This is mostly a instrumental album with a few vocals thrown in (all in their native language). Hybris is regarded as a classic by many ProgArchives colleagues, but I really don´t agree much with them. Maybe because I only recently heard it and it did not have the same impact on me as it may had if I had it in 1992. Who knows?

It is clear that the band has excellent musicians and their mix of retro and (then) modern sounds is quite refreshing. However, composition wise, they did not come up with very strong tunes. Ok, several parts are excellent, but unlike their heroes, rarely the melodies stick and most of the tunes seem like several pieces and bits put together without much care for a coherent whole or even flowing. The second part of King Bore is specially good, but again they failed to produce an epic stuff that is really convincing from start to finish. Which is really a shame, since it is clear they had all the chops and the right influences. The excellent production should have helped too. Vocals are only average, but fitting anyway, on the few occasions they do appear.

All in all I felt that Hybris is a pleasant album, but I can not rate it as high as several others did. To me is good album overall with very good parts on it, but that´s it. I´m going to listen to their latter material to see if they did fulfill the promise Hybris surely is.

Rating: something between 3 and 3.5 stars.