WHO'S THE BOSS IN THE FACTORY?

"Who's The Boss In The Factory" opens with(I'm guessing here) one of the members children singing "When the night goes silent and shadows come to life, send a message from the heart". This gets me every time, what a great line to open an album with, filled with optimism and encouragement. What better way to describe Karmakanic and their music?

The opening track is called "Send A Message From the Heart" and I think it captures Karmakanic's melodic and brilliant progressive rock and the big doses of optimism and happiness it contains perfectly. An optimism rather unusual for Swedish music, which normally tend to turn towards melodrama and suicidal tendencies(I'm Swedish, I get to say these things!). On their previous record the song "Alex in Paradise" practically made me jump in my chair from sheer giddiness. It's so upbeat groovy and tastefully complex! This trend reasserts itself in the first half and end of the opening track. While keeping things happy and upbeat, the band manage to keep it likable and balanced for the most part; skillfully juggling technicality and emotion without losing the one to the other. Although the overall feel of the songs are extremely positive there are "darker" parts that save the music from turning into a parody of itself(Hey, I said I'm Swedish. There is such a thing as too much happiness /joke).

Jonas Reingold's bass playing is just as fantastic as in the previous records with Zoltan Csorsz keeping things tight and groovy with him. Together they make up a rhythmic powerhouse that turn some parts of the album into pure gold. The other players performances are of course of the highest class, no mediocrity as far as the eye can see. Karamakanic is a band with some of the greatest instrumentalists of the genre, no doubt.

So the opening track is brilliant, quite fantastic even. What can then be said about the rest of the album? For me it never really manages to pick up from the insanely epic intro. The musicality and creativity of the members of Karmakanic is nothing short of awe inspiring. So much skill and tongue-in-cheek hooks and humor that it'll leave your mouth dry at times. But I felt like the album never really takes off after the opening. It stays in safe waters to the end, until finally finishing off with an almost too grand finale(we're talking marching drums here; they are pulling out all the stops!).

"Who's The Boss In The Factory" is a great progressive rock album which doesn't really surprise or add anything to the genre. You get what you expect from purchasing an album with members of The Flower Kings. It's very swedish progressive rock, very melodic and very lagom(swedish word for "not too much, not too little"),

3/5

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