CITY OF THE SUN

A breath of fresh air and total shock. There is still life on planet earth. And there is still great music made by mere mortals but which can awaken emotions. This is the case with this young sextet from Norway that confirms that the Scandinavian scene is constantly on the up and dominating the progressive music of the new century.

What makes this album different from other very good ones is the combination of musical prowess and the apparent appetite to create something new, fresh, dynamic. Seven Impale seem to have 'studied' Peter Hammill and retained the best from his corpus of eclecticism, transferring it and adapting it to their own style. Not much of major chords here, this stuff is dark, heavy and aggressive. Distorted bass lines bring to mind King Crimson but the multiple melodic themes maintain a nice balance with the outright bursts of jazz improvisation and some seldom torrential over-complex avant-garde passages. Take VDGG and Panzerballet, shake them up, spin them round and you get the point.

Seven Impale can get carried away by their young enthusiasm and get off track with their experimentation that my mere-progger mind cannot necessarily capture (Eschaton Horo) but these are short and part of the deal that makes this package so imperfectly perfect. Special mention goes to Benjamin Mekki Widerøe and his delivery on the sax that ranges from smooth jazz to heavy fusion and some of the best passages I have heard played on the saxophone ever (check the last minute of Extraction).

If you are still wondering why 'God Left Us for a Black-Dressed Woman', pick up 'City of the Sun' and you might understand. This is the best album of 2014.

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