ÄNGLAGÅRD

Änglagård may have resurrected progressive rock. The Norwegians did a very good album and when I first heard of it I was completely blown away, but now there are some things that hold me back a bit. The starter Jordrök is the pick of the bunch. Everything is sophisticatedly crafted if we exclude the somehow forced usage of the pipe organ which interrupts the magnificent flow of the song. But it is a momument in progressive rock nonetheless. Vandringar I Vilsenhet that comes next begins with an amazing intro with cello, flute and keyboards with tasteful chords, but at 3:45 something unexpected happens: vocals (female) join in. I clearly enjoy much more the instrumental sections of the song which, fortunately, are the biggest part of the track. On the third song (Ifrån klarhet till klarhet) it is male vocals this time that come into play and they are even worse. Somehow Änglagård seem to set a tradition for future Norwegians bands to come (or should I say of those I have heard): great, if not impeccable, musicanship but flat, lukewarm, uninteresting vocals. Immediately after the vocals part has ended, the song takes up a new interest. This becomes more evident in the last track Kung Bore where the vocals take a more dominant role and which seems to drag on and on and the music sounds now a bit self-referential.

In conclusion I would say that it is the vocals that bum me out. The biggest part of the music is definitely ejoyable and top-notch, but sometimes things sound a bit forced to my ears. Still, if you like, or at least the vocals isn't a nuisance to you, the album will score extra points and it might well make it to your top progressive releases.

For me one of the great things in the burgeoning Skandinavian prog in the early Nineties is the blend of Classic 70s prog and the intense Skandinavian folky atmospheres, Landberk, Anekdoten, and Anglagard are still my favorites. This review is about the latter band, from Sweden, with their highly acclaimed debut album entitled Hybris.

The four beautiful, alternating and dynamic tracks (between 8 and 13 minutes) contain obvious hints from King Crimson, Yes and Genesis but the Swedish vocals and melancholical climates (many months in Skandinavia it's dark and cold) add a special flavor to the music. Skills and emotion, not a trademark in progressive rock.

My absolute highlight on Hybris is the final composition Kung Bore, you cannot beg for more as a fan of genuine progressive rock: shifting moods, a lush instrumentation, and lots of tension between the folky parts with acoustic guitars and delicate flute, and the sumptuous outbursts, layered with vintage keyboards (Hammond, Mellotron and a church organ sound), and fiery guitar work (strong elements of Howe and Fripp), topped with intense vocals, an excellent bonus.

If you are up to the wonderful, often intense Swedish vocals this is such a captivating, dynamic and compelling album.

I absolute love Swedish Prog. I absolutely love the Hammond Organ and the Mellotron, and despite giving this album a generous go over the past 3 years I've just never gotten into it. There are a few good rhythms in parts, but the rest just sounds like poorly pieced together pretentious loops overlayed with nonsensical guitar. It really sounds to me like the type of prog that is "purposely bad or atonal" as its subgenre.

I'm really sorry to the Anglagard fans because it seems a lot of people understand and get this but to me this album is just 40 minutes or uninspired, difficult for the sake of it, pretentious noodling. There are some moments that I like, like the 5/4 section in the beginning of Jordrok when the drums come in, but there is no denying that the guitarist is off his face if he thinks he's pulling some good riffage in the best parts of this album.

Fairly solid latter-day Anglagard live album. Once you get past the opener "Introvertus Fugu (Den asociala blåsfisken) Part 1", the album borders on the formulaic - you get two tracks from each of their studio albums and that's your lot. Long- term fans will find that there's a significant but not total overlap in track selection between this and Buried Alive - not so much as to render either release redundant, but enough to offer up an interesting exercise in comparing and contrasting how they come across in both contexts.

Infamously, Anglagard weren't keen on the Buried Alive release - they'd disbanded recently after the US festival appearance captured on that live album, in part because they were dissatisfied with how they were realising their studio compositions in live contexts, and they didn't think it was up to scratch. By contrast, this is a much more official live release, representing the band as they would prefer to be heard. I think they were too hard on themselves back in the 1990s and that Buried Alive is a perfectly decent release, but at the same time I would say that this one has the edge on it in terms of recording quality. (It's also simply more interesting to hear the compositions from their 1990s albums reinterpreted with the benefit of two decades of hindsight.)

Whilst I don't think either release is really going to displace the studio originals by my reckoning, I'd certainly recommend this as your next stop if you have already enjoyed Anglagard's studio albums and are desperate for more.

Although bands like Marillion, IQ and Pendragon flowed like a fresh breeze to revitalise the progressive movement in the early 80's, by the end of that decade the genre was showing signs of exhaustion once again. On the other hand, the legends of the 70's were also struggling to cope with the devastating force of the grunge wave and alternative trends, forcing them to reinvent themselves and rethink their proposals in order to maintain their relevance or be left out of the game.

And it is in the midst of this complex scenario that, from the cold Scandinavian lands and their bands focused on terrifying the audience with creepy stories full of demonic riffs and guttural voices coming from the darkest side of metal, emerges an exceptional work that could well have been developed in the early and flourishing 70's for the progressive universe: "Hybris", by the Swedish debutants Anglagard. An album that gives new airs to the genre, gathering and condensing elements and sound structures of Yes, Genesis and King Crimson, to mention some of their influences, in four long and solid pieces, performed with an uncommon maturity considering the youth of its members (three of them were around 18 years old...).

The tracks unfold with a remarkable fluidity and level of production, from "Jordrök (Earth Smoke)" and its initial gentle piano, to the voluble and intricate "Vandringar I Vilsenhet (Wanderings in Confusion)" and "Ifrån Klarhet Till Klarhet (From Clarity to Clarity)", supported at all times by the unusual solvency of the very young percussionist Mattias Olsson, the hazy mellotrons of Thomas Johnson, the arpeggiated and electric guitars of Lindman and Jonas Engdegård, and the harmonious and recurring flute of Anna Holmgren, contrasting with the intensity of Johnson's synthesizers (especially the Hammonds), to define the melancholic style of "Hybris", the highlight of which is the beautiful and medieval "Kung Bore (King Winter)".

The few sung passages seem almost dispensable, given the instrumental quality of the compositions, however, having presented the album in some alternative version from Swedish to English, would probably have generated a ripple effect of much greater international repercussion.

Excellent.

4/4.5 stars

The early-to-mid 1990s saw a new resurgence of progressive rock music. Part of this can be put down to the rise of the Internet making it easier for enthusiasts to find each other and to discuss the music they loved; part of this was down to the rise of new acts intent on recapturing more complex sounds of yesteryear and not satisfied with the concessions to commerciality that the neo-prog groups had worked into their music; part of this was down to new prog-oriented festivals being arranged to provide showcases for the music.

And of course much of it came about because of all those three being interlinked. The Internet helped fans discover bands and festivals that they'd have never heard of otherwise, international promotion now being viable on a DIY basis whereas before only the biggest acts could have dreamed of it. The new bands looked to the Internet and festivals to develop an audience for their music. The festivals found in the new bands a generation of enthusiastic, hungry acts producing great music and keen to put them before an audience, and found in the Internet a sufficient audience to make staging the festivals in question viable.

In that respect, Buried Alive is an album which offers a microcosm of the burgeoning prog renaissance of the 1990s - for it's a live album from Änglagård, one of the most exciting new acts of the era, capturing their performance at the 1994 ProgFest in the USA. In former years, the idea of a Swedish band who had only put out one album on a more or less self-released basis getting to play a US music festival would have been far-fetched indeed - but Änglagård were one of the early darlings of the online prog fanbase, and that made them a natural fit for ProgFest.

What you get here consists of all of their debut album, Hybris, plus a brace of three tracks from Epilog, which had been recorded a few months prior. They are delivered largely as you remember them from the studio albums, bar for the odd difference in audio and delivery to be expected from the live context. If you love Änglagård and cannot get enough of them, that'll be fine - and if you're a symphonic prog fan that's probably the case. At the same time, I'd not recommend this over their studio releases.

The Indomitable Album

"Viljans Öga" is Änglagård's third and last studio album, released 30 years after the emblematic Hybris, their debut album. Exclusively instrumental, this is not a breakthrough in their discography but a reinforcement of hierarchy and a demonstration that, despite the fact that 3/10 of a century has passed, the band's name has never lost weight. If there's one thing you learn listening to these monsters, it's that you have to take advantage of every dosis of their music they give you. 4 sides, 4 songs, Tales From Topographic Oceans' manner (but with an almost totally opposite music, let's be clear). Here we go.

The opening song is called "Ur Vilande". The album starts quietly, with a dominant flute from the beginning. The other instruments will enter either accompanying or making some nice arrangements. The track gradually descends into dark, mournful and somewhat mysterious melodies. The evolution of the song is joined by a guitar and a cello that keep trying to decipher the aforementioned mystery as if they have some clues, with some simply spectacular bass lines! And as if the whole thing has been disturbed and erupted, the instrumentation collapses and breaks through the first coating to continue working on its own project. Änglagård works so well in their style that it is a pleasure to listen to every second. It is worth remembering that the driving instrument of this song is the flute; it volatilises the song in moments of fury, calm, thought and transition. The electric guitar provides elongated or curved notes to give a wonderful sense of movement. You'd just know this song is theirs by listening to 5 random seconds. Halfway through the song, Johnson along with his must-have mellotron lends a rather entertaining solo, accompanied impeccably by Olsson with just the right amount of percussion. From here on, i.e. its final minutes, everything is utterly out of control but not sloppy, as if it represented a fight between two angry family members who are flinging everything at each other, with its moments of calm and ruthless and, somehow, comfortable fury. The enigmas unfold on instruments that take on confidence and become inextricably friendly, without abandoning the motif of this song. As usual: Impeccable!

The second song is "Sorgmantel". It wins you over from the first 4 subsequent notes. Again, Holmgren takes the reins from the beginning with his enchanting concert flute and acoustically opens a new scenario (and this already tells us that the flute is indisputably the north of this album. Engdegard slowly approaches with his fascinating electric guitar to give Brand his cue with his unmistakable bass to form a section led by them. Truly these guys bring ineffable melodies every time they appear. Striking notes strung together, one after the other, breaking through any kind of distraction and grabbing the listener with windy but not friendly arms. This song is 3 minutes shorter than the previous one, and that seems to be compensated here with a bit more savagery, with a more frenetic and catchy structure. Again, the second half of the song is where the gunpowder is played. The 7/8 pops up every now and then to clean up the vulgar and sit the listener down in case they've rambled too much (there's no shortage of reasons with this music) and it works as a great resource in songs of this style where the energetic inevitably becomes sluggish.

Then we move on to "Snardom". Well, it's a bit complicated to describe, but the calmness that started the songs on side 1 and 2 has completely disappeared. The song is full of chaos before the first second is completed. Dissonant notes, quirky and fierce percussion and an untamed electric guitar coming in to reclaim territory. As the longest song on the album, the first time I listened to it I thought I would find a slow and patient pace, and it turned out to be the opposite (thank you Änglagård for being an ocean of surprises). This song in a sense reminds me of "The Gates of Delirium" for its martial traits and peaceful resolution. Midway through the song, cello, piano and flute come together to create possibly the most beautiful section of their entire discography. A warm, deep ambience where every note is a stepping stone to enlightenment. Honestly, listening to something of this calibre I think how blessed are those of us who know this music. I remember that in the book of their first album (Hybris, of course) a member had written something along the lines of "We seek to break out of musical standards and we don't stop until we do", and they have achieved this in each of their works with an archetypal hierarchy.

"Langtans Klocka" closes the album brilliantly. It's my favourite of the album. I could never imagine a better closer. The song begins with the flute and piano creating a beautifully detective-like balloon. The most accomplished acoustic on the album, residing in a layer that is held aloft by tangible and knocking instrumentation. Its rhythm is so fun that it seems to go faster than it actually does. Mellotron and percussive effects blend together for circus-like arrangements that strangely make way for a nostalgic-tinged? transition. It's hard for me to describe how I perceive the last few minutes, but you can be sure that any adjective comes close to flattery - they manage to bring epicness to a circus tune! The textures of this part are astonishing and worthy of standing up and applauding. Everything becomes dissonant and concludes in a funny impertinent xylophone.

I always like to remember that Änglagård is one of the VERY FEW bands that have almost entirely instrumental albums (this one is 100% instrumental) of a spectacular level and quietly sitting among the privileged positions. Right now Hamburger Concerto by Focus comes to mind, but none other. Hybris and Viljans Öga are masterpieces from beginning to end and never lose their touch.

3 Stars - 67/100

I consider this to be one of the most overrated albums according this website, as I'm reminded of something that was written in the CD notebook. The band wrote something along the lines of "We do not seek to make music that sounds stable or has a consistent direction," and therein lies the problem.

I can understand why prog rock fans love this album, though. It appears to offer everything that fans of bands like Yes and Genesis want - long tracks with vocals spread out between extended instrumental sections, with acoustic guitars, flute, odd time signatures, and various keyboards padding out a sound like walking through a forest at night. But except in rare moments, particularly in the third song, it just doesn't work for me.

From my perspective this doesn't hold up to multiple listens. Once again, the third track is the main exception here, which seems to capture the spirit of the band by starting out with goofy fanfare music that gets interrupted loudly by a jagged-rhythmed attack that doesn't overstay as a song, but the low-points on this album will be heard when you are subjected to the lyrics or slogging through the melotron bits that sound overly dramatic and have no pay-off, especially in the second and fourth tracks.

This can be fun to play a fantasy-themed video game with this as background music, but it does itself in by moving all over the place and never really satisfying with any of its short-lived themes. It's not a terrible album, but compared to the rave reviews, I'm not convinced.

The bonus 5th track is actually fantastic, and the highlight of the disk, but unfortunately the new version in the second album does not do the original recording justice, so definitely stay around for Gånglåt Från Knapptibble. In any case, as far as 1993 albums go, this isn't my pick. Peace.

In the 90s, more retro and symphonic styles of progressive rock was taking a turn. Bands such as The Flower Kings, Spock's Beard, and Echolyn were garnering some big buzz, and high praises across the board. Their styles and ways of creating new and exciting music really helped them stand on their own way. Unlike those bands, there are more obscure and darker sounding bands from around that time that looked at the more bright and celebratory Prog rock music that was going around a lot and thought to themselves, 'Nah, let's get a little dark and gothic'. There were two signature bands that had this mentality, our darlings from the USA, Discipline, and their Swedish brothers over with 'nglag'rd.

'nglag'rd is one of those bands that sort of just appeared, disappeared for an eternity, and came back just to disappear all over again. Their three album run is all around very positive with the only one that could be considered their worst still could be considered a great if not an excellent album. Their influences vary from the more jazzy side of King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator and the symphonic and artistically charged Yes and Gentle Giant, however even with these influences they clearly have their own sound and style, combining more gothic classical stylization with their rock output while also cleverly sneaking in some folk elements as well. All of this creates a steaming pot of a great and cryptic sound that can be best described as gothic. I have expressed in the past that this style is a guilty pleasure of mine and will most likely stay as one for years to come. So you bet that with all these attributes this band soon became one I grew an attachment too, and you are absolutely right.

This uncanny valley can be entered through with the first song, Jordr'k. This instrumental track really sets the stage pretty much instantly with the beginning piano melody. The song pretty much builds off of that into guitar and organ driven riffs that just go into this hauntingly rich chord progression. This song just plays off of the first two minutes and they do it so well by showcasing true progression in the music. Even though it all sounds complex and even a little chaotic, it feels so fine tuned to where even the most complex of riffs feel very easy to get a hold of. Added onto this is the very great guitar work. I know most people would draw into the organ, but I think the guitar is the best instrument here. It strangely feels less like a guitar and more like an instrument that doesn't exist and I just love when a band can just make an instrument sound completely different from what we are used to. You can hear the European influence this has screaming all around it. The almost Beethoven-like structure and the old dark age feel this has really let's this song stick to me like glue. First impressions can really make or break an album for me, and this song really made me want more of this style.

We still continue the same style, but in a different light. Vandringar I Vilsenhet adds vocals into the mix. This adds a new layer to their uncanny style of music. The harmonies the vocals provide really make this song feel so much more enriching without it muddying up the instrumentation. In fact I think the vocals really add to it all. You can really feel the music with the singing a lot more now, almost as if the vocal work done here is in itself an instrument the band uses to move the music forward. I know they aren't Zeuhl but I do get some vibes from Magma's Stella Vander's operatic vocal works from pretty much all of their albums. I do not know if Magma did give this band some kind of influence, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I should also talk about the bass here, because it is pretty nice. It has this funk to it, but still be in line with the music presented here. It just shows you how well this band can adopt and convert a wide range of styles and fit them in line with their music.

Even with their shortest song, Infr'n Klarhet till Klarhet, we still get a strong use of progression in the music. While the style mostly remains unaltered, how the band conveys it feels all too different. These subtle yet noticeable changes truly makes this album so excellent. I would like to point my attention to the more bucolic parts. Not everything in these songs are all chaos of course, there are moments here that are a lot more laxed. These more laxed segments really do add a level of thought and care into the music. I am an avid supporter that not every progressive act should just be nothing but insanity. Progressive rock isn't and has always not been about creating chaos in music, but rather utilizing more obtuse elements in ways to advance the music forward into different directions, and sometimes those directions can be a lot quieter and introspective. Even in the quietest moments they find a way to entice me with their amazing sound.

Everything comes to a close with the last track, Kung Bore. As a finale to this album, I think it pays off in gold. It continues what the last songs have done, refines the aspects they introduced a little bit more, and really settles the album down with a nice finale piece. Really what I had to say about the last 3 songs apply to this one as well. This album doesn't end on a giant crescendo or something that is big and grandiose, instead it ends on how the album began, a cryptic yet beautiful melody. They really wanted to end this album off on their own terms, going against the already norm bending fragments of progressive rock by not going big and huge but instead ending things off how they would want to be ended off. Their hubris really is a testament to why I love this genre of music so much. It can branch out and grow and evolve into so much to where every band of Prog rock has a little something special to them, and this album shows why.

This album is a good showcase on what progressive rock truly means to me. It is a style that can evolve to whoever bends its will, and by doing so can create something amazing. This gothic album is a clear cut masterpiece through and through. If you love Prog rock and you haven't heard it already, 100% check it out. It is not that long, being only 44 minutes, yet it has so much to unpack that the album really does feel like an experience. It really is one the best out there.

This review is very simple: I can not live without this album. For years I play it in my stereo, my car, my mp3 player or my phone at least once a week. Viljans öga is like a religion for me. It's something that came from other dimension to speak to my mind directly. Pure magic. I can't thank enough these Swedes for recording this masterpiece. It's hard to pick up something from it, every second is precious, but if I had to I'd choose Snårdom: a sonic delight, a brain orgams, a wild and wonderful creation. In my personal Olympus of Prog.