COMA GHOSTS

The contemporary prog scene has two main areas: the first is that of the fairly legendary bands who focus on keeping their reputation, whilst the second being that of the newly formed bands that want to emulate the aforementioned. The problem is that legendary bands try to find the freshness they had when they were just a newly formed band. Simultaneously, newly formed bands simply try to play like the bands they love, in order to eventually find their own originality. In both cases, usually, the plan fails. But there is a thin line that the majority of the bands barely notice these days. Well, except for some, except for bands like Effloresce.

This debut album is a perfect example of how music in an european cultural context should evolve. If by progressive we understand the kind of music that wants to create, not emulate, then yes, Effloresce is trully a progressive band. Spacey keyboards open up the first piece, paving the way for some complex heavy riffs matched accordingly with amazing drum lines. Going through "Spectre Pt. I", I had the feeling of stepping over an interestingly paved musical journey, with epic vocal lines and haunting guitar melodies leading the way. Eerie voices and dissonant distorted guitars maintain the same feeling over the third song as well, ending up into "Undercoat", one of the most intimate songs I've heard in many years. With a more melancholic note, "Swimming through Deserts" captures those dreamy prog soundscapes we all love, only to just twist the matters once again. The last composition stands both as a magnificent conclusion and as a prog epic that listeners will be greatly tempted to revere as one those great compositions that only a top prog act can create.

However, what must be said and remembered about this album is not that it has a certain "centre" song (because they're all awesome, at any level of interpretation), but that it tries to push musical language in a coherent and unified way. If you spin the album a couple of times, you'll see that it is a voice in itself, a wall of force, that concentrates its attention on creating alegorically constructed images through sound. The listener is thus engaged in applying the album to his intuitive understanding, his internal ear, without being forced to take the music in a certain way.

Technically speaking, the album is very well recorded and produced. The musicianship is superb and, above that, there is only one Dan Swanö . Nothing more to say. Great work!

Overall, I hope that there will be more debuts as creative as this is. As Goethe once wrote, "Ich lieg' dir zu Füßen, / Da bin ich beglückt!". 5/5