IDENTITY

But you can look into it, on the other side of crime reporting, madness, abductions, terror.

This is probably the "darkest" album of the brilliant Airbag. Where every song is someone's tortured soul. Which one is the best? Crap! I can't choose - they are all perfect! And you will never know where is "modern progressive", where is the blues, where is psychedelia, where is stadium rock, where is art-rock. They mixed everything together, overtaking their older 'brothers in trade'.

This is the first album of the band, dated 2009, and it already stands in line with the recognized classics of the genre, overtaking many (if not all).

The rhythm section, as well as the keyboards, is still in its "infancy" here, but you should pay attention to the vocals and the lead guitar.

"Steal My Soul" - what is it if not the best example of classic art rock, or psychedelia, or modern progressive? I don't know, damn it! Because this is all of the above, depending on what you want! It feels like their lead guitarist Bjorn Riis combines Pink Floyd and Camel, in a single person, adding Steven Wilson's modernism and Muse's paranoia (only without the hysteria and 'involvement' of the latter). Crap! Are there too many comparisons? But I can't do anything with myself, I just can't describe this mesmerizing, viscous piece of dark magic in another way! They seem to bite into your brain and themselves "steal your soul." Just a guy with a gun in his hand, whose mind is hopelessly broken, and "something" that makes you do something inevitable, inhuman.

They make you feel the dark that is hidden behind each of us, something that can break out, eerie and inexplicable. And so the whole disc, from which it is impossible to single out anything at all, because it is monolithic and unique.

Airbag is probably the scariest band I know. They achieve this effect without the "heaviness", syncopated metallized percussion and other overloads. Their music is light enough, though heavy, but in a different sense of the word. Not the happiest group, but in terms of its effectiveness it has no equal, even among the older, more famous 'brothers', which the group have floored, recording on the move such a masterpiece as Identity. Simple Norwegian guys with gray faces and an absolutely unclear fate at that time. They made a huge layer of music just secondary to themselves.

Subjective opinion? Maybe. Crap! I listened to too much "modern progressive" music and I was always missing something. There is everything at once! All that I have not even tried to look for!

The main part of this album, great in every sense, is, in my opinion, "No Escape" - the can opener of the album, with a song structure characteristic of early Airbag.

These guys make you believe that their music sounds right from your head, not from the speakers. The uncomplicated rhythm and fairly simple chords are complemented by the incredible power of the vocalist's voice and mind-blowing lyrics that tell about the ruthlessness and transience of the world around them, about destinies and roads, and about what leaves forever, and you cannot keep it. Where everything becomes unreal, and the mind is like a dark room, releasing creepy monsters.

"There's a corner in my house

They're telling me it's mine

Why does it feel like I've been here before

Please pull me out of this dream and out of this life

'Cause nothing that I see is for real

Not anymore. "

Something makes me stand up when I hear these words! Every time!

No wonder they say that the ingenious is always simple. Here we are talking not only about one of the best compositions of the Airbag group, but about one of the best compositions in the genre of modern prog rock, since we have a group at the peak of its power, and automatically the strongest representative of the direction, remained in the shadow of more successful 'brothers'.

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