WATCH FOR THE UMBLES

At the time when this album was released, I was very enthusiastic about what I could expect. The album cover reminded me of a winter place in Sweden which hosted a student campus (Ostkupan) and based on the good reviews and origin I was awaiting a typical Scandinavian prog with hints to the past.

The first minutes by the first tracks confirmed by initial thoughts - great keyboard-driven symphonic prog partly inspired by King Crimson/Anekdoten, no vocals and quite a good level of dynamics despite repetition. The great Moog solo with the heated up drumming followed by competent guitar even graduated my level of joy.

"Strayed again" provides a completely different view of the band, though keyboards are still omni-present, there is a VDGG-like vocal, great acoustic moment with flute and avantgarde experimentation, later we can hear a jazzy organ which demonstrates high keyboardist' competence.

"Below the water" is a relatively down-key track, based around 3/4 rhythm though singing puts me off. "Into the cold" fixes the things for me but ingesting a dose of Anekdoten and have a dreamy atmosphere thanks to flute and mellotron.

"Agitated mind" is a long track and things take a long time to develop but it's not a complaint. It is quite well structured and contains reflective parts too.

To sum it up, vocals are the weakest element on this album but the instrumentation and good creativity drag this album up the bar. 4 stars