A TIME OF DAY

This has been a big year for new albums, what with Porcupine Tree, Rush and Marillion records coming out. Those records have all been pretty good, but for me, this was the one I was waiting for, and it's everything I cracked it up to be.

Anekdoten has improved with every CD, with 2003's Gravity being their last triumph, an album on which they added pop, ambient and psych elements to their usual dark prog riffage. The live record Waking the Dead was also a triumph and well worth picking up. This record finds them refining their sound further on a remarkably consistent album. There are new touches, such as the flute on 30 Pieces, some nice synth and organ sounds and even some hard rock riffs, as well as the return of the cello. As always, there are great big lashes of majestic 'tron all over everything, which pleases me no end. The songs are strong, ranging from the pounding dark prog numbers which the band is known for to delicate acoustic songs like Stardust and Sand and Prince of the Ocean, the album's highlight track. The band's vocals from Jan Erik Liljeström and Nicklas Barker continue to improve with each passing album.

I find it hard to find any fault with this record, which is a stew of psychedelic dark prog of the highest order from an incredibly consistent band. I think Anekdoten is the finest young prog band in the world today, and this is their best record- better than the new PT? You bet. It's their masterpiece. Housed in a really nifty digipak with great art and high quality paper, this is an essential.

It seems they know a secret hidden from others. They manage to write good and even catchy songs but they're still Prog. Maybe, a lot more mainstreamy than on "Vemod", but I like this movement towards Modern Prog.

"A Time of Day" sounds like a mix of "From Within" (very good) with "Gravity" (average). The result is rather predicatble, worthy of solid 4 stars, but still they mean a lot for me, and this one will be definetely featured in my personal Top10 of 2007. "A Sky about to Rain/Every Step" is a wonderful 9-min long journey (my favourite here so far), "In for a Ride" has classy Canterburish organ solos, "30 pieces" is a wonderful mellow 7/8 groove with flute soloing...stop me if you can :) Highly recommended album - do not believe anyone that ANEKDOTEN have lost their charm. They're better than ever. A Must

My first musical encounter with Anekdoten their compelling and captivating music was when I started to write for Dutch progrock paper SI Magazine in the early Nineties. I was very lucky that in this era the Mellotron drenched Skandinavian prog had just started to florish with as good examples Anglagard, White Willow, Landberk and ... Anekdoten. I was blown away by their debut CD entitled Vemod (even more on the re- release that contains the wonderful bonus track Sad Rain). On that album they sounded very similar to King Crimson (Anekdoten began as a King Crimson cover band) but gradually their music turned into more original and quite distinctive prog with the CD From Within as my personal favorite. I was a bit disappointed about the successor Gravity so what to expect from the this new CD?

During my first listening session I got very excited, it sounds more as a succesor to From Within than Gravity featuring the distinctive melancholical vocals, the dynamic-rhythm-section and the huge tension between the mellow, compelling, propulsive and bombastic parts. Of course I am delighted about the unsurpassed sound of the omni-present Mellotron, what a moving waves! Other keyboards on this album are the Farfisa organ (especially in the captivating 30 Pieces in great interplay with the Mellotron along propulsive guitar riffs and a wonderful final part with delicate flute and lush Mellotron) and synthesizer in Stardust An Sand (mellow with twanging guitars) and Prince Of The Ocean (dreamy with soft organ waves and a beautiful closing section with Mellotron). The guitar work sounds very alternating: fiery in the poweful opener The Great Unknown, propulsive in 30 Pieces and A Sky About To Rain, sensitive in King Of Oblivion and In For A Ride and mellow acoustic twanging in Stardust And Sand. My highlight is the long composition (almost 7 minutes) In For A Ride: it starts very compelling and bombastic, then a powerful bass and a lush Mellotron sound join and halfway we can enjoy a sensitive guitar solo. The climate ranges from dreamy to bombastic featuring a bit ominous undertone, almost psychedelic and very captivating, this is Anekdoten at their best!

With this album Anekdoten has prooved again to be a current top progrock band, every song is a wonderful painting delivering exciting and colourful landscapes, as if Turner and Constable have translated their paintings into prog music, a big hand for the new Anekdoten, not to be missed!

I couldn't help noticing the scarcity of reviews for such a major prog act's long awaited new recording, A Time of Day being released almost two months ago. Intrigued, I enlisted a certified Prog Doctor to supply his august diagnosis on such a puzzling patient! Putting down his stereo stethoscope and after numerous trebly symptom tests, he prescribed the following three possible scenarios: 1- Anekdoten fans are quiet due to a severe allergy towards the mellower strain initiated by the From Within and Gravity viruses and "dying" for a return to the metallic infections from the Nucleus (hint! hint!) era. 2- Anekdoten fans are stunned into a state of acute torpor because of their incapacity to properly put to ink the swell of emotions emanating from this latest sample and are still in the recovery room. 3- Or waiting for their birthday in order to religiously rip open the plastic and dive into the lush euphoria.(Hello Sinkadotentree!)

Well, I decided to look into this myself with a bit more maturity than before , having respected this Swedish band enough to purchase all their main albums but never really getting into their craft with any gusto and never really understanding why ( the Quark, Strangeness and Charm syndrome )Wake up call! I am floored by my own stupidity. I wanted to wait a bit before getting Time of Day but I was compelled to accept the advice of my prog store owner who branded this CD as prog from the gut (les tripes, en francais), a monument of stark, heartfelt and passionate music. He sold me and sold me the record too. From the opening strands of lead track "The Great Unknown", the anticipation is rewarded with a massive wave of all those elements that make Anekdoten special: a rumbling Rickenbacker bass, tight fisted drumming, swirling trons galore, gritty guitar ramblings and that flute-propelled Scandinavian mist that can only come from our northern friends .With evocative lyrics such as: "All the forces of the cosmos lead me on as we shoot through the galaxy, I'm coming home!", you get the message! "30 Pieces" is more angular, requiring a few obedient auditions before coming to appreciate this rather mordant piece, where guitar, bass and drums waltz in unison , egged on by a meandering flute lead. By the third track, the stunning "King Oblivion", the band "Emerils" it by kicking it up a notch, (yeah! Cliché, I know!), keeping the blistering pace all the way to the moody finale, as the fabled mellotron really gets all warmed up, purring like a savage cat, scouring through the thunder with tectonic abandon, proving conclusively that this much maligned instrument deserves its mythical place in prog history but also demonstrating its potential to enthuse for many more decades to come. "A Sky about to Rain" is another fragrant slice of irate melancholia, with gale-force mellotron sweeps, "burning a hole into my soul" where simple rhythm guitar meshes with ornate Moog leads, emitting a quasi Space-Rock feel that is very tantalizing segueing effortlessly into "Every Step I Take", an short instrumental outro that has nothing to do with The Police. "Stardust & Sand" features some more Floydian synths, somewhat reminiscent of "Welcome to the Machine" and an overall ambient feel, drowsy percussion, male and female vocals and acoustic guitar. The calm before the storm: "In For a Ride" is aptly titled, a gloomy, somewhat opiate delivery propelled by some blistering bass married to a relentless beat with a neat Niklas Barker (Ex-Berg) guitar solo, a great voyage indeed. The disc ends its run with a delightful closer "Prince of the Ocean", a perfect companion to "Stardust & Sand", with a scintillating cello\tron that gently lullabies you into pressing restart , back to the top, again and again. I am somewhat in need of returning to the back catalogue and have a smorgasbord orgy of Anekdoten, this time paying a little more attention. So, is it masterpiece or the wall paper behind it? The doctor waits... 5 cellos

Few groups take as much time between albums while still managing to release them at regular intervals. Just Tool seems to be able to be more parsimonious. While Anekdoten's last two studio albums had not raised that much enthusiasm from fans, the first being vacuous and thin, the second foraying in the wrong direction, this was IMHO, Anekdoten's fifth is breath of fresh air. With an artwork (in a digipack) hinting at Vemod's paganism and mystery, the return of Anna-Sofi's cello, a wider array of keyboards and even some occasional flute (by guest Bergsten), indeed giving the whole album an impetus that was absent since the late 90's. I must say that for me, this was their last chance before I gave up if another poor album it was.

After an enthralling lead-off track Great Unknown (the usual Anekdoten realm track plus a great flute), comes one of the most unusual but extremely successful track 30 Pieces starting out like an 80's pop track (Nordin's drumming will keep this characteristic for much of the 7-min+ track) and slowly evolving to become a wild four minutes instrumental interplay passage where the superb flute takes the lion's share of the spotlight; Very refreshing and a great start to this album!

King Of Oblivion (with its shared verses between Jan and Niklas) and A Sky About To Rain (with a slower and ambient ending that's overstaying slightly its welcome) fail to maintain the superb level of the first two, but both would've been highlights on the previous Gravity. The short instrumental Every Step I Take (with a post rock feeling especially the guitar part), Stardust And Sand (a very acoustic ballad that reminds War Is over from the previous album, but in better), the gloomy and furious In For A Ride (with its great inter-verse lunacy bits) and Prince Of The Ocean (slow, lengthy and haunting) are ending the album on the same level than it started.

While not quite of the level of their now-mythic debut or its violent follow-up, this album is indeed a return to form, forgetting the emptiness of From Within and easily outdoing Gravity. Having maybe found a start to their new direction without losing their souls, Anekdoten is one of the better bands from that second 90's prog wave

My original frustrations with this album brought back memories of a similar event in my life back in 1982. It was like history repeating itself for me. RUSH has been my favourite band longer then I care to say, and I remember buying "Signals" and being so disappointed. It was nothing like their previous five glorious albums. Sure their previous album "Moving Pictures" was their most radio friendly release but it still rocked. "Signals" didn't rock and synths dominated where the guitar should have. Well after putting it aside for weeks I brought it back out and it just clicked with me. I still prefer the five albums before it but man I like "Signals" an awful lot. Fast forward to 2007 and "A Time Of Day" from ANEKDOTEN (my second favourite band) comes out and I just couldn''t get into it. The powerful bass and heavy sound was lightened, sure the mellotron was still there thankfully but it wasn't gale force like before. "Gravity" the previous album much like "Moving Pictures" was more commercial sounding but it was still awesome. Well in my first review I gave "A Time Of Day" 4 stars reluctantly but felt in my heart it didn't deserve it, but I also thought it would grow on me. After putting it aside for months I brought it back out and it just confirmed what i felt earlier and so i changed it to 3 stars. Well i'm back in April of 2009 after listening to it about four times over Easter weekend and it clicked. Funny but it clicked the first time I listened to it, but further listens have only made me like it even more. Go figure ! The band continues to progress by adding some flute from guest Gunnar Bergsten from FLASKET BRINNER and some Post-Rock style guitar on one song, and an overall more modern sound.

"The Great Unknown" is classic ANEKDOTEN ! I like the lyrics which are about a man going into deep space where no one has gone before. It opens with drums and rumbling bass as mellotron rolls in. The song settles down quickly as vocals come in. A lot of bottom end on this track. Mellotron returns in a big way, enough to capsize a ship. Some great guitar later. What an opener ! "30 Pieces" features vocals that are deliberate and almost spoken with steady drums for a minute when mellotron floods the song breifly which is so moving. This contrast continues. A flute solo starts before 3 minutes while the song closes out with piano and flute until mellotron joins in around the 6 minute mark. This song shows the band trying new things more than any other song on this disc. It's also my least favourite (Haha). "King Oblivion" is a song that would have fit nicely on the "Gravity" record. I love the vocals on this track and the tasteful guitar solo before 3 minutes.

"A Sky About To Rain" is a song that Jan-Erik said was their most accomplished and visionary yet. And it's hard not to disagree with that as I feel this is the best song on the album. Why am I so moved when I listen to the beginning of this song ? We get a full sound 1 1/2 minutes in of mellotron, bass, drums and guitar. Hell yeah ! The contrast of the mellow and full sound continues. When he sings "A sky about to rain" then the mellotron falls like a down-pour of rain. Nice. Heavy guitar follows. This song eventually blends into "Every Step I Take" an instrumental that sounds like the previous song (like the second part of it) only the guitar shines even more. This is where the Post-Rock style guitar comes in as the song slowly builds. Great tune ! "Stardust And Sand" is a good song with gentle guitar, drums, vocals and synths. Oh and lots of mellotron. I agree with tszirmay that this song has a real PINK FLOYD feel to it and especially a "Welcome To The Machine" sound.

"In For A Ride" is the most uptempo song on the album. Mellotron leads the way in the beginning until guitar takes it's place as vocals arrive. Mellotron 4 1/2 minutes in is back and there is a guitar solo 6 minutes in. What's so cool about it is the distorted organ or is it farfisa throughout. Anyway it has a strong Canterbury flavour to it that I thought i'd never hear on an ANEKDOTEN tune. Great track ! "Prince Of The Ocean" is good but not great, the cello is a nice touch anyway.

In the liner notes they thank Anna & Mikael Akerfeldt as well as Stefan Dimle and Reine Fiske both previously from LANDBERK, as well as both PAATOS and OPETH.

I had heard this band's earlier stuff extensively on record player and also on concerts. As I was really crazy about their dramatics, I was excited to get this record to my hands as quick as it was released. The compositions are great, continuing the progression of slight taming from the records of earlier days, but with familiar sounds and musical ideas present. Careful arrangements have been done with good taste, and sonic palette has been enlarged with some visiting new instruments. I really like the coda of the celestial flight on "Every Step I Take", allowing the emotions fly on the wings of shoegazing sounds. The harder parts in the songs are also great, but I admit the intensive feeling parts appeal me personally more. I recall facing this album was first little difficult, as the two earlier records had made so profound impression to me. But this is really fine album also, little rockier but really pleasant, having a feeling of Scandinavian spring in it.

The first time I knew Anekdoten was through their "From Within" album which blew me away at first spin and made me explore other albums of the band. I got "Nucleus", "Vemod" and now the latest album "A Time of Day". When I spun this album at the first time, I was so impressed with the opening track "The Great Unknown" (6:22) which generates mellotron-drenched music combined with guitar rhythm in floating style. It again confirms that the music of Anekdoten is very close with King Crimson. It's truly a joy enjoying this opening track especially when the style of guitar fills, solos combined with soaring mellotron sounds which remind me to the 70s prog music. Not only that, this album also features Gunnar Bergsten as flutist. Wow! man . it's truly a great track!

The next track "30 Pieces" (7:13) moves in an upbeat mode but it still maintaining the similar style of opening track. The vocal line sounds heavier. There is an obvious use of organ overlayed by mellotron. Again, the flute work is so catchy and dark .. in fact it has catchy notes. This time flute provides great solo during interlude part and makes this song sounds elegant as a vintage prog tune.

"King Oblivion" (5:02) moves in a bit different style because there is an obvious psychedelic style and the way vocal is being sung. It's still a nice track with straightforward structure. "A Sky About To Rain" (6:29) goes even more psychedelic especially through the use of acoustic guitar in a mellow style. "Every Step I Take" (3:06) brings the music back on track. The mellotron sounds go thinner and softer. "Stardust And Sand" (4:29) starts off with an acoustic guitar works accompanying excellent singing style. Keyboard and mellotron played softly at the back.

"In For A Ride" (6:47) brings the music into uptempo style with heavier mellotron sounds. The musical break with organ solo is really interesting. The concluding track "Prince Of The Ocean" (5:30) is really a good track in mellow style with catchy and memorable melody. The vocal line (male - female duo) is so clean and powerful. This is one of my favorite tracks.

Overall, I am really happy listening to this album because all songs are good with some are being exceptional. If you have King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator albums and you like it, it's a big possibility that you like it as well. Give it a try! You will never be disappointed owning this album. Keep on proggin'..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

The least I can say, is that Anekdoten is not a very prolific band. This is only their fifth album in a period of almost fifteen years, being a short one in the current standard of the industry. But as I have already mentioned, I prefer a short and good album than a long and dull one. So.

The Swedish lads come back again with their powerful yet melodic music. The opening song "The Great Unknown" is seriously Crimson oriented. Fabulous tron of course, but you know by now that I am biased, right?

"30 Pieces" is more complex, hectic. It is a more difficult song to apprehend and needs more listening than other pieces of this work to fully capture it. But even so, I am not fully satisfied nor thrilled. And I guess that if you prefer their melodic/melancholic flavours, a song as "King Oblivion" will suit your ears more. At least, it is my case.

The next one, is a dual song. A dull intro but then.Yes, guys : a sublime mellotron break will almost transport you to heaven. Half a song? Maybe. And what to say about the immaculate beauty of the short "Every Step I Take" ? Breathless, I am.

I have a mixed feeling about this release. I was so anxious to listen to it after their last two studio albums (and their great live one "Waking The Dead") that I might just be too demanding. But songs as "Stardust And Sand" (the weakest here IMHHO) as well as "In For A Ride" (which is only great during the second half with a superb bass play) are not as good as what I had expected from this excellent band.

It is true that I fully appreciated their work with "From Within" and since then, each of their work was an enchantment. Maybe the next one will revert the band in these territories. This is a good album which closes on a dark "Prince Of The Ocean" (somewhat PT oriented). Three stars.

I hope that the musical chair is now over in terms of genre. Anekdoten started in the Art Rock, switched to Eclectic and is now in Heavy Prog. I hope that they won't end up in the Prog Related next time!

Another fine album from one of the most underrated, underappreciated, and sadly unprolific groups around: A Time of Day delivers the goods with Anekdoten's signature sound of heavy/light contrasts, savage gusto, sweeping mellotron, and energetic melodies-- this is great stuff!

With A Time of Day, the group's songwriting tip-toes into more accessible formats, with many strongly performed, catchy choruses and big instrumental melodies. There's still that dark, brooding energy which Anekdoten fans adore, but this time it's tempered a bit by the likeability of the songs-- as well as Barker's improved (and much more prevalent) singing voice, which comes close to crooning here and there. The first three songs are a pure joy, with Great Unknown starting things off with a heavy, bass-led riff giving way to vocal shout choruses, background flutes (great!), and a general feeling of excitement. The cynical 30 Pieces follows up with even more flute, inclusion of piano, and extended instrumental passages only to give way to King Oblivion-- a short, atmospheric jam song. Lyrically evocative and sonically dynamic, there's a lot to like here, and the enjoyment only deepens during multiple listens.

By this time I can almost guarantee that new listeners will fall in love with this band, and if not the gentle vibraphone interlude to Sky About to Rain will cinch the deal. In general the album has a more tender, thoughtful feel to it than their previous works, but is nonetheless an outstanding example of their songwriting and instrumental proficiency; I have yet to find a group that is as consistantly good as Anekdoten. Highly, highly recommended for a variety of listeners!

Songwriting: 4 Instrumental Performances: 4 Lyrics/Vocals: 4 Style/Emotion/Replay: 4

When I bought this record the last year I was very excited at the first spins. That oppressive and dumb atmosphere filled with mighty mellotron waves (and nice flute background) is really fascinating. Unfortunately, after a year I still have great difficulty having a complete and satisfactory listening session. The album is great, no doubt, but it lacks of any variation and appears, sometimes, simplistic. There are some exquisite touches, I cannot deny. A subtle dull impression permeates the whole work, though. The album is perfect when you pick a pair of tracks for a short spin.

Music for a winter night

"A Time of Day" is the 2007 release from Anekdoten, one of the most favored progressive acts of the modern era. It features moods that are mostly in the darker and chillier realms, reminding me of forests and wintery landscapes. I enjoy a good deal of the album but still find it a bit hit and miss. The first two songs (The Great Unknown and 30 Pieces) along with the last track (Prince of the Ocean) were my winners. Draped in luminous mellotron and rolling drums the opener is a choice feast with some good guitar work as well. I love the odd drum beat and pacing of "30 Pieces" which features lovely flute work in the latter portion, really some nice stuff. The closer "Prince" is captivating as well with oodles of spellbinding mood and really nice contemplative guitar work. The emotions here just hang with you, cling to you as you listen. Some of the others were considerably less interesting to me, such as "Sky About to Rain" and "Stardust and Sand." Both felt uninspired and compositionally lackluster. Another problem is the suffocating production of this CD. I can't really describe what they did here but the album seems muffled or something, as if your speakers have thick quilts over them. I would certainly recommend Anekdoten fans judge for themselves but I cannot get beyond 3 stars for this release, good moments but hardly essential listening.

If you want to know how much I marvel at Anekdoten's music I will simply refer you to my Gravity review and not start all over again here. A Time of Day continues in the same vein as Gravity, with some extra proggy things thrown in for good measure such as vintage prog instruments like moogs and flutes and some unexpected interludes and alterations in some of the songs.

Even so it took me months to appreciate it, I could tell a similar story to that of a reviewer above. I liked it at first but it didn't really gel until I gave it another spin in the spring of 2009. I've played it an uncountable number of times since and it still continues to blossom more intensely. That is how slow and simultaneously addictive this music works on you. So be warned and go out and buy this now. Just like a good wine this needs a few years to season.

I initially gave this 4 stars because I like the bleak beauty of Gravity even more, but since this sits definitely in the top 5% echelon of my discography 5 stars it must be. There's few contemporary bands that crawl under my skin like this.

A Time Of Day is the fifth full-length studio album by Swedish progressive rock act Anekdoten. I´m pretty much a newcommer to Anekdoten´s music and have in the past couple of years worked my way through their discography from an end. The first four albums have been some great surprises for me and I´ve become quite hooked on Anekdoten. The last album Gravity (2003) is probably the most accessible album in Anekdoten´s discography and I´ve been very curious to hear what the band has cooked up for us on A Time Of Day.

The trademark dark, bass heavy and mellotron drenched progressive rock/ alternative rock sound of the predecessors is fully intact on A Time Of Day and fans of the band shouldn´t worry a bit before purchase. The vocals are as always kind of dreamy almost shoegazing in style. All songs on the album are of high quality and besides the excellent opening track The Great Unknown I´ll mention In For A Ride, A Sky About To Rain and 30 Pieces as some of the highlights. The latter contains a great guest performance by Gunnar Bergsten from Fläsket Brinner on flute. But as mentioned all songs are excellent.

The production is really of high quality too. Anekdoten´s sound on A Time Of Day is dark and organic which suits their music perfectly.

A Time Of Day is another great album by Anekdoten and it´s hard to imagine that they will ever fail to excite when listening to this music. The only complaint might be that there are few surprises on the album ( the addition of flute on 30 Pieces is one of them) but Anekdoten is obviously a band that only slowly adds new ideas to their basic foundation. But on the other hand who would want them to sound totally different? A Time Of Day fully deserves a 4 star rating ( maybe even a 4.5).

Just another of Marty's crazy reviews, but this time, we'll done it differently, because I've long awaited the time, when state of my mind will allow me to do this statement. Music of Anekdoten is weird. There's something sinister, yet interesting about their music. Heavy, too heavy feeling, like anvil hanging above your head, threatening you to fall. After all, they're Heavy Prog, or at least classified as this. We can go along, Marty and this term.

So where's the statement ? Here, all these words, whole review is epitaph to this living dead music. Yes, this music feels like hundreds of years old tomb, where parties are still held, bouncer is still here (although quite rotten) and everything seems to be fine. They're having fun, aren't they ? But there's something bad, but the more you are here (listen to this music), the more "normal" it sounds, even this feeling in the back of your mind remains.

There's not many musical acts that sounds like Anekdoten (German for something like "humorous story" ... hey, I'm not laughing, not at all, not even a little bit, this is serious business), their sound is very distinctive. Combining mellow (tron) music with distort, non-pleasant elements (and then suddenly, flute bursts in and confuse us all again) in a way that is simply impressing.

You feel like being dragged somewhere you didn't want to go at all, but when you're here, you'll at least try to enjoy it to the maximum, because Carpe Diem, life is short to be worried about bad things like doubts. Sometimes almost post-rock like style of music, when you have to feel to "feel" it. Feel for feel, makes completely sense (dude).

And meanwhile, flute still plays and treats you carefully, like when you're small and mother guides you through dangerous mine field. Umm, something like that at least.

5(-), after all, why not. This music has everything. But consider it one star less when you're not "in mood" and want just something easy-listening. Not my case most of the time, though.

I bought this album during Anekdoten's gig as a supporting act for Riverside back in 2007. At the time I haven't listen to their music for almost a year so I almost felt like I owed it to myself to check out and see what the band has been up to.

The gig went well although, if the memory serves me right, I was surprised that Anekdoten didn't play a single track from Nucleus. Instead we've got a first hand introduction to the band's latest material through performances of In For A Ride, A Sky About To Rain and The Great Unknown. To tell you the truth I was so overwhelmed by Riverside's excellent performance that I only have fragmentary memories from Anekdoten's gig so I'll leave it at that and move on to the review.

I started listening to A Time Of Day the day after the gig and did so for at least two weeks. Since I missed out on Gravity I wasn't entirely sure what I was about to experience, but some of the material I've heard live did feel much more interesting in comparison to From Within.

The Great Unknown sounded like a very smooth opening track that just glides into the scene and creates the right atmosphere for the rest of the album. 30 Pieces is mostly memorable for the flute performance which brightened up the other arrangements but ultimately I just get the feeling of déjà vu whenever I hear it.

Next up is King Oblivion, a song that I really enjoy although something tells me that it's probably for all the wrong reasons. It's basically a straight forward rock-tune but with a very nice melody that gives it a just the right twist to keep me entertained. It's important to note that the arrangements on this album feel much softer and more melodic compared to what I previously have heard with A Sky About To Rain and Every Step I Take as the most prominent examples of just that.

In For A Ride is my least favorite composition off this album because I just don't see where Anekdoten was going with this peculiar performance and it really made me scratch my head when I heard it live. I can't say that I enjoy the direction that the band is going for with their later releases. I get the feeling that they are trying too much in creating a sound that would be appealing to a wider audience and in result are loosing the identity that was so prominent on Vemod and Nucleus. Still considering all the praise that A Time Of Day has received I feel as though I'm in minority.

***** star songs: King Oblivion (5:02)

**** star songs: The Great Unknown (6:22) A Sky About To Rain (6:29) Every Step I Take (3:06)

*** star songs: 30 Pieces (7:13) Stardust And Sand (4:29) In For A Ride (6:47) Prince Of The Ocean (5:30)

A Mellotron-soaked maelstrom of ambience

Anekdoten's latest 2007 album "A Time of Day" is a strong melancholic atmospheric work with very slow paced easy listening material mixed with bursts of dynamic creativity. Each track tends to blend into one piece so it is difficult to define any highlights for me. Having said that, '30 Pieces' is my favourite track as the time sigs and vocal style are memorable among all the instrumental sections that the album capitalises on. This track also has a killer riff in the instrumental break and some wonderful flute. There are moments of sheer tranquil bliss in the same vein as King Crimson, Transatlantic or Porcupine Tree. There are passages of deep mellotron mixed with spacey guitar embellishments, and the cymbals crash in like waves on a beach. The music transports you to an imaginary location: I can picture a forest with sun bursting through the clouds with the golden rays blessing the treetops. The soundscape is a beautiful transfixing serene texture with shades of light and dark.

The vocals are quiet and reflective such as on the acoustically driven 'A Sky About To Rain'; "How did it ever come to this, I can't pretend that nothing changed any longer... Ignore the space between the lines, don't act so surprised when you knew it all along each and every lie bursts a hole into my soul." Powerful stuff.

There is not a lot of heavy rock on this which may alienate some of the fans of earlier heavier Anekdoten. The fantastic up tempo 'In For a Ride' is as heavy as they get and even this is layered with pleasant sounding keboard motifs. The vocal style on this is similar to Gentle Giant as are the rhythm breaks. However, as in the case with Opeth's "Damnation" that did not have a shred of metal on it, this is a nice departure for the Swedish band. It takes them in a new direction with waves of gentle keyboards, focusing on duel mellotron layers, and a few detours with some heavy drum beats and solid guitar breaks. The riff on the instrumental passage of 'A Sky About to Rain' is notable as a memorable killer riff, but for the most part the mellotron orchestration dominates.

Overall Anekdoten have a real winner here and it may pleasantly surprise you as it did me. It will grow on you with its infectious melodies and solid virtuoso instrumentation. I have to award this musicianship and consistent high level of innovation 4 stars at least.

Interesting return for Anekdoten, with 2007's "A Time Of Day", definitely their best album since "Nucleus".

Wonderful, but also very different: surely the band is coherent with their sound, but something in these songs say that the band has become more modernized ( all their previous album, in my opinion, where excessively influenced by 70's prog rock, which made them not as interesting for the general audiences). There still are some weak and not very convincing moments, that lowered the album's level, and that is why I'm giving it a four. However, great moments are as well present: the first couple of songs are exquisite, from the melancholy of "The Great Unknown", to the dazzling "30 Pieces", which can boast a one of the best Anekdoten melodies ever, or the utterly original sound of "King Oblivion". The "Sky about to Rain", which really makes you believe that rain will soon come down, is another gem of the album. These mentioned are the best songs, in my opinion. "Prince Of The Ocean" also has a nice melody, very calm but still mysterious.

I'm hoping for a new Anekdoten album, since I see that, after more than fifteen years, they are still able to surprise.

Anekdoten's first brace of albums all largely chase the same broad style of heavy prog influenced strongly by mid- 1970s King Crimson, and an audience thirsty for new prog lapped them up eagerly. (For my part I find that they tend to sound a little samey, with From Within standing a little ahead of the pack.) A Time of Day finds the band sidestepping into a quieter style, with psychedelic influences suggesting that they had been listening to a good deal of 1960s proto- progressive works in the intervening years since Gravity, establishing a new sound for themselves which they would successfully polish further on the following Until All the Ghost Are Gone.

If you are highly invested in the early Anekdoten sound, take a breath and clear your mind a little before listening to this one, because it's not going to meet your expectations - but if you find that Vemod, Nucleus, and From Within tend to mash together into one indistinct mass in your head, you may find this the refreshing new take that Anekdoten needed.