IMPERFEKT

3½ stars actually. The third and final album of this bygone Swedish-speaking Finnish group is their strongest effort. The production values are very good while the songs themselves don't manage to move me deeply, but on the other hand there are some really great prog moments in many of them. The unspectacular vocalist Dennis Nordell sounds more confident than before, but again I wonder why the pretty good female vocalist has so little participation - only backing vox on two tracks!? One of them, the opener, clocking under five minutes like most tracks on the album, is a nice, tight, prog-flavoured rocker; I agree on Eetu's thought "softer version of modern Rush", if speaking of the poppier, less heavy side of Rush (80's - 90's output mostly, keyboards involved). That energetic approach with demanding time signatures and other prog details in the relatively direct and rather vocal-oriented songwriting continues throughout the 61-minute album.

The crucial question therefor is, are there enough differences between the songs to prevent the long album become a little bit boring? The fourth track 'In i dimman' at least partially steps out of the harmless & positive atmosphere to the darker nuances. The clean-articulating vocals aren't quite as capable of expressive width as the playing, and this is sad because of the vocal-oriented structures. The album craves for instrumentals and/or instrumental sections! It's been so long since I've listened to it that I don't remember how much it develops into that direction. 'Ingenting', one of the two tracks over 8 minutes, contains good instrumental passages, and also the baby's cry in the end has a good surprise effect.

On the following songs the portions of various ingredients and moods alter a lot and the album gets more interesting - and distinctively progressive - as a whole. For example 'I verkligheten' has several succesful moments and especially keyboards are delicious, at one moment 70's style, the next pure Neo Prog. Very well for a song of under five minutes! The eight track contains pretty well-done vocal harmonies at one point. 'Sagt och gjort' is not proggy at all but it's a nice sounding, sincere and folky pop song. The 10-minute final track starts with a harpsichord, a brief theatrical choir... The very proggy song contains tempo changes, both heavier and more delicate passages, and with a better vocalist I'd think it's a gorgeous Spock's Beard-like contemporary prog piece. Or am I being too merciless for the vocals? They aren't that bad, really.

I hardly return to this album very often, and I'm afraid all the great moments in this well done but relatively unoriginal and unemotional album aren't quite enough for rounding up to four stars. But as a "good, but non-essential" three-star album this is definitely very strong.