TIMELOSS

First Paatos studio album is a little prog jewel. Not so impressive at first listen, it took me several months to get into the athmospheres and strong melancholy of the tracks and I have to recognize that I fell in love of Petronella Nettermalm voice, one of the best female prog singers of the last decade.

You can find a lot of inffluences stamped in every song but Paatos sound is still different and unique. Even when some sections are very similar to Portishead, Gathering or White Willow stuff, the truth is that Paatos music is a really nice experience and after a few minutes you forget all those annoying comparisons.

The album opens with Sensor and a nice jazzy-bossanova intro that leads to a very strong guitar riff and a catchy rhythmical section. Petronella vocals are awsome (as usual) and perfect before the epical guitar solo of the middle and the brilliant and powerful closing section. The next song, Hypnotique, starts with a slow entrance leaded by winds. Quickly, the songs turns into a kind of Portishead cover (just kidding!) leaded by beautiful Petronella voice... Some soft piano section leads into a crescendo a la Landberk (well, is Stefan Dimmle on bass!), turning the song into a dark and melancholic miniepic which returns to the vocal section and ends with a hard part leaded by keyboards, flute and guitar.

Téa is a nostalgic ballad a la White Willow. Nostalgic and dark could be consider the "single" song of the album. Not bad but IMO the weakes point of that release. They Are Beautiful opens wirh a floating, melodic and very melancholic athmosphere that slowly turns into a dark song. At last, Quits. In 12 minutes, Paatos takes you on a ride that includes some electronic bases in a long section that sounds like a drum n' bass jam but near to the end, the songs turns into a crimsonian caothic section full of trumpets. Totally insane! and definetively it takes out of your seat...

Nice album. Great example of the new prog generation. Full of musica references but interesting and singular. Highly recommended to any prog fan...