LIVE IN AMERICA

This double live CD has the characteristics of showing at the same time both the goods and the limitation of Pär Lindh as player and composer, other than giving the band the possibility to show an excellent skill.

First of all the presence of a version of Jerusalem that's almost the same arrangement as ELP on Picture at an Exhibition on CD1 and of a cover of 21st Century Schizoid Man on CD2 which can give a clear idea of who the main influencers are, but listening better, specially to the long medley entitled "Rondo" on CD 2 you can hear more than one reference to Bo Hansson and his Lord of the Rings, and considering that the band has released an album entitled "Bilbo" inspired to the first chapter of Tolkien's trilogy it appears clearly that Bo Hansson is another point of reference for Lindh.

All the goods and the limitations I was saying...the already mentioned Rondo is enough to show them all. There is an impressive drumming throughout the over 10 minutes of the medley, and effectively Nisse Biedfeld is a very resistant drummer, able to play very fast for a long time, really impressive. It's fun trying to recognize all the excerpts from rock, classical music, traditionals and anthems which are part of it, and here is where we see the limitations: Pär Lindh plays very fast but on the classical parts is sometimes too approximative. Lovers of classical music would surely be disappointed, not only by the arrangements but even by the keyboards' execution.

On his original parts, like the Bilbo Medley but across the whole CD1 the band plays at its best and it makes this double CD a worth buying.

The fact that it's sometimes an ELP clone, plus the mentioned not great performance in the classical parts make me decrease the rating to 3 stars, even if a mention has to go to the rest of the band, not only the drummer which is able to cover the mistakes and to the great soprano voice of Magdalena Hagberg.

One last note: Par Lindh is an excellent keyboardist it's only when he plays Bach or Mozart or tries to make an anthem fit into chords that aren't its domain that I quite dislike him.

3 stars