BELIEVERS & DECEIVERS

I had received the band's previous effort Stories a couple of weeks before I got my hands on Believers & Deceivers. I love the lush sounds on the beautiful and somewhat melancholy Stories so I was pretty surprised by the direction the band had taken with Believers. The seventies approach to the music is still there but the playing and overall sound is tighter. I feel that the songwriting derive from a quite different pond this time around. From the very start we are introduced to the heavy rockin' side of the band on the opening track Pointless Living. Erik Hammarstrom is the new guy here and his drumming is simply amazing. The jazz/fusion prog song After The Storm has lots of time changes and features fantastic solos on synth and guitar. Per Hallman is the composer of The Harvest, the first of the album's two epics. This is in true symphonic prog style and after its 20+ minutes it just leaves me breathless. The lyrics about an inmate isolated inside a padded cell works so fine with the highly Genesis/Yes influenced music. A part with a saturated bass solo while the voices inside his head start to take over is chilling. The song ends with another great guitar solo over a very fine symphonic arrangement. The Grand Event is keyboardist Linus Kase's masterpiece. It's glorious 35 minutes contains some very beautiful themes that recur in various shapes. From the Pink Floydish opening through the Gentle Giant inspired vocal arrangements to the Procul Harum-like meditations this song pretty much covers all that a symphonic prog freak like myself could ever wish or hope for. I find some hard rocking efforts here but in the meantime the thoughtfulness that I so much enjoyed on Stories is very present as well. The band members play miscellaneous instruments like the Theremin and Kases saxophone is sometimes very reminiscent of David Jackson/VDGG. Believers & Deceivers is an amazing symphonic prog album all the way through and I can't recommend it enough!