SYVÄÄN UNEEN

"Syvään Uneen" is Art Deco's first record, a Finnish band, rewritten to dwell in Crossover lands and that seems to be a good definition of this music. The music of Art Deco is almost all the time well arranged and the musicians are progressive. Especially guitars (two guitarists: Antti Koivistoinen and Tuomo Suhonen) and keyboard (Olli Autio) makes this good and occationly symphonic. What makes me don't feel so much for this record is the vocals(Jaana Mäkinen). She does some new things with her voice but it feels strained and sometimes wrong. It could be me being unused to Finnish language, one of the most unconventional ones in Europe, though a brother nation to my own Sweden.

The album's best effort is "Valaistumattomat" not surprisingly the longest track and a great symphonic one where a wonderful melody introduces us and in the end says farewell. My feeling there was deep and inspired and in the middle of the song it was very experimental and a bit of space rock. "Suurin panoksin" has some flavors of the seventies and a beautiful melody which feels Finnish. "Sväeltäjä" is darker and calmer with wonderful sound and "Pala kerrallaan" has divine instrumentation and an edge. I have problem with the vocals though. They don't work here and in the song "Ikuiseen uneen" (almost a boring pop song) it feels like the vocals is sprung from Eurovision. Perhaps others would like it but the song wasn't my cup of tea.

As one this record passes my definition of a good record. The instruments and the thought about much in this music is interesting and wonderful, but this is not a record I think I will keep. I hope anybody else shares his/her opinion about this record. That would be interesting! Three stars!