KAKA

Samla mammas manna's fifth(or tenth) studio record and also their last "Kaka" from 1999 was a good but unfortunately uneven record with one phenomenal half and one quite bad. Ten minutes shorter and a totally different decision perhaps would have been possible. As before(23 years earlier!) the cover is colourful and interesting. Four traditionally clothed people rest on a Princess cake. "Kaka" is Swedish for "cake".

Without singing(always something of a pity) the group Samla mammas manna here manage to once again create astonishing progressive rock, totally unique. I wouldn't say Samla has become inferior. On seven of these fourteen tracks they're amazing. I am sure you would hear the magic of wild compositions, symphonic rock, crazy piano and screamings. Samla mixes some sweidsh folk variations with orientalic and europeic craziness and they master accordion, guitar, piano, bass and drums as good as I want. The best tracks are "Frestelsens café", "Oh sa masalana jämfört med Alman river", Första ikarien, Lyckliga Titanic, Satori, Andra Ikarien and Tredje Ikarien. The second of these is an experimental joke and a perfect summing of SMM. The other mentioned songs continues where they quited some years ago with a totally melodic and innovative prog.

The other tracks, unfortunately take the glory away from this record. Well, they are experimental and in a small dosage it's pleasent but when every other song isn't a song there is too much of it. As musical art those tracks certainly have a worth but it disturbs my listening to this otherwise perfect music. So my advise to you is to skip those not mentioned tracks. Listen to the good ones, they're worth it. If this was a lp-record it's time would have been 38-40 minutes and I think the result would have been better. With some awful fillers my rating will be three stars.