I BÖRJAN OCH SLUTET

I Början Och Slutet is the eighth studio album released by the influential Swedish band Trettioåriga Kriget (Thirty Years War). It's different from the others, but from the first to the last minute the group's unique identity can be heard: music usually simple but not banal, the musicians are very talented but not exibicionist, and a constantly powerful sound without the need to go the bombastic way. The songs have the strong presence of bass and guitar riffs, and the keyboard is used normally only for harmonies, not melodies. The singer's timbre is quite peculiar and, in the case of this band with almost 40 years of history, it has aged well: the voice is still the same, only a little lower-pitched. We start with a signature track, showing all these qualities except for the voice. The music goes on a continuous crescendo, leading directly to the first song. In this album the tracks keep a certain relation between themselves, the sound is usually continuous, with no breaks between the songs. The album title means "In the beginning and the end"; it has a vague concept, some of the songs tell about the story of a poet/musician, with titles like Childhood (Barndom) and Youth (Ungdom). These tracks are in the first half; in the second half, the character is a grown up and some of the lyrics may have been written on the road, with references to Mexico (Desert - Öknen) and Berlin (S-bahn). While the album has a constant sound, the music is always in movement, with lots of variety. There are three instrumental tracks: I Krigets Tid parts I and II, sharing a common theme, opening and closing the album; and Ungdom II, which is a continuation of the previous track, Ungdom. The band also shows some new sounds, particularly from the keyboard. The package is a luxurious digipack covered with band's artist Johan Gullberg, keeping the same quality shown in the last few releases. It includes a 20 page booklet with band photos, the original lyrics and - for the first time - their English translations, a very welcome addition. The Kriget vocals always have a good dose of emotion, so it was easy to forget about the lyrics and concentrate on the quality of the music. However, with the translation, one can finally fully appreciate all the aspects of Kriget's music. In the previous 2004 brilliant reunion album Elden Av År, Trettioåriga Kriget showed the same strength they had in the '70s, putting other reunion albums to shame. It was as if the band had never disbanded in 1981. In this new album we can confirm the previous one's quality wasn't just the adrenaline of the reunited group: I Början Och Slutet shows a vibrant band, in continuous evolution. It's a solid work, with not a single bad moment. It's 54 minutes and 12 tracks are gone before you know it, and you'll want to reach for the play button and listen to it all over again.