SURPRISINGLY HEAVY

Writing some words about this so talented musician is a true honour for me!COSTE APETREA has Romanian roots and that's why I have a special feling for this very important musician,which comes regulary in the country of his father and this is somethin very nice!I am a Romanian too and I have sincere admiration for guys like APETREA ,which is very proud about his origins!Concerning it's music,APETREA is a very important name of the Swedish musical scene,his band SAMLA MAMMAS MANA being one of the most representative name of the prog folk rock Swedish scene in the 70's!He had with this band a very active live activity and European tours,even in Japan they had at the time a popular status!Members from SAMLA MAMMAS MANA were the core of the most very famous and actual Swedish band THE FLOWER KINGS,considered one of the best prog rock bands today!!2 years ago COSTE made a great come back with RITES OF PASSAGE in 2006,showing that he still has many bullets to shot for today's music!He strikes back with this new album SURPRISINGLY HEAVY,and indeed,it;s a surprising album!Overall it;s heavy and it shows a muscled side of the author,combining in a clever way the virtuosity of a guitar player with some excellent ideas of composition!Everything on this album belongs to APETREA ,excepting the drums and that gives a full and live sound of the album!There are a few vocal tracks and APETREA's voice is very likeable ,a little rough and blues anchorated!There are many differences between this album and RITES OF PASSAGE,the 2006 album was more prog orientated with longer tracks! This one is more compact,song orientated and more straight and direct!Good production ,a very nice cover too,a humorous one we can say and a very pleasant album from a very versatile musician which still has many things to say,now when he has in pocket a very good contract with one of the most active European labels LION MUSIC! 4 STARS and CONGRATULATIONS!

Surprisingly heavy is his latest album to date, issued in 2008 at Lion Music and is maybe his most heavier release from entire career. Tage Asen helping hand on cover art, excellent again as always, showing perfectly as title sugest and cover what is inside the album. Here Coste Apetrea shows his most heavier side as a musician and composer, well do not expect a prog metal album here, he explores the heavy prog side combined with jazz fusion elements, and even bordering with some more metal elements in some parts the result is indeed a surprisingly heavy album. The release shows how versatile and worthy performer is in prog world, some excellent instrumenta passages here, aswell his voice is quite ok, nothing realy to talk about but pleasent most of the time. This is one of his better album, while none of his albums are bad, but this one maybe has something that is catchy from the start to finish, examples are many here like title track, Chased By Shadows, Closer or Kolkata Traffic shows a musician who even has over 60yers old , is playing like in his teens, he done everything minus the drum parts. His abilities as guitarist is known by everybody, here showing some fantstic chops , some of them quite heavy, the riffs the solos are very well performed. 3.5 stars for this one, maybe my fav Coste Apetrea album. I tend to see that his solo albums are very unknown to many listenrs, fans of jazz fusion with an eclectic feel and aswell heavy prog amateurs must discover at least his lat 2 albums, woth it for sure. Competent and unmatched musician in prog world.