ALL WILL BE GOLDEN

Superfjord is a psychedelic/progressive rock band from Helsinki, Finland. Sadly neither their debut from 2014 nor this second album that came out last autumn have yet received any reviews here. I didn't know the band either, until a couple of months ago someone recommended me this album. I'm really glad he did! Before going into music, a word of appreciation also for the cover design of Sami Mursula. The gatefold LP looks pretty cool on my turntable lid.

The six tracks (between 5 and 11 minutes) are composed by guitarist-vocalist Jussi Ristikaarto. Having six men in the line-up and three guys as vocal or sax guests, the band has achieved an organic and powerful sound that combines the virtuotic, retroish prog and the trippy, hypnotic elements of psychedelia. Even though there are some vocals with recognizable bits of lyrics -- mostly very repetitive and simple -- , the music is instrumentally oriented all the way. The vocals never become the spine of the pieces, instead they function nicely as an additional psychedelic flavour since they are deliberately rather monotonous and chant-reminding, in a good way. A couple of examples: the tightest piece 'Rainbow' commands to "bow down to the rainbow", and 'Parvati Valley' repeats lines in a foreign language (Indian?).

The opener 'Cut and Paste' starts with Pink Floyd/ The Alan Parsons Project -reminding spacey & bouncy guitar chords and an elegant high-tech soundscape. In the midway the band switches to a higher gear with almost a Santana-like groove and a shining guitar solo reminiscent of Mirage-era Camel. Everything, the percussion, the vocals, synths, the guesting tenor saxophone, serve to the whole which feels coherent, natural, organic and exciting. The longest track 'Master Architect' dives deeper into cosmic orbits around the strong riffs and doesn't pale in comparison to the genre-defining classics such as Hawkwind. There is the undeniable jam-like, riff-based approach concerning the building of the compositions, but this is not sweaty stoner rock with endless repetition of dead-heavy riffs. It's something much more intelligent. I'm not hesitating at all to label this band as progressive as well as psychedelic. The album as a whole keeps the listener interested, thanks to the wide pallette of nuances and the extremely succesful production & mixing. All friends of psychedelic space rock and an organic band sound with a little World music flavour, write the name SUPERFJORD in golden letters into your memory. This is a trip you don't want to miss.