VARIOLA VERA

HIMMELLEGEME is this Norwegian psychedelic rock band releasing their 2nd album in an atmospheric space rock genre; extraordinary progressive music that touches the soul as I read it?. And this is it! Riffs, aerial and crystalline solo on brilliant melodies bordering on melancholy, perfection; a little AIRBAG, GAZPACHO, SIGUR ROS, a lot of blues and above all a nod to the atmospheric new-wave of SIMPLE MINDS; songs in Norwegian and English on the disastrous imprint left by Man on Gaia, bordering on the concept album coming from another celestial world; an enjoyable guitar, a captivating voice, a sound also flirting on the lands of synthetic PORCUPINE TREE. A trace of RADIOHEAD and Jeff BUCKLEY for a dark climate.

"Shaping Mirrors Like Smoke" opens the debate with an intro that SIMPLE MINDS of the era of "Streets Fighting Years" would not deny; here it's stronger, psychedelic rock emotion and you will have to get used to a slide guitar used to perfection, soaring and thundering like a supercharged PORCUPINE TREE, like a crazy MAN OR ASTROMAN. "Heart Listening" shifts to basic WILSON, Alexander's soft voice, bucolic 'Paris, Texas' slide guitar pulling towards DIRE STRAITS; it then goes up to a folk rhythm, a softer atmosphere than the magnificent SUBURBAN SAVAGES from the same country, final on the divine guitar.

Alternative "Blowing Raspberries", we think of Gary NUMAN, a cheerful cold wave sound; title with the characteristic synth, like a bit of the burlesque tunes of BOWIE; to see at the end of the SF film with a cohort of policemen from the future; the guitar solo pulls out well. "Brother" literally changes course, melancholy air with the voice of Thom YORKE from RADIOHEAD, acoustic guitar; the SIMPLE MINDS slide seems to be reborn, Asian piano in the background then it starts gently, the sidereal beauty very present on an obvious crescendo and Hein Alexander who plays it in a Dantesque, dreamlike, aerial way.

"Let the Mother Burn" continues on a basic monolithic title until the chorus soars where the air literally explodes; the guitar is eyeing the PINK FLOYDs and Charlie Burchill's from the SIMPLE MINDS; hovering break then return for an end in dreamlike trance, in psychedelic mantra without the need for pills. "Caligula" follows, the most atypical piece, heavier, darker, obvious fat, pleasurable stoner; a bit of MONKEY 3, MOTORPSYCHO in the background all in 4 minutes and an apoplectic rhythm wrapped in a still crystalline solo, hammering air until the end.

"Agafia" for this 80's tune taken again, at the time when I said to myself that the prog would go through the synth and the new wave; luminous tune for THE PIECE from the album: extraordinary musical adventure; the voice, the drums, the synth and the bass are well organized to magnify this spleen guitar melting the notes; dark melody like the day which falls more and more quickly in Autumn, air oozing the beauty of the blackness and the finale possessing the instrumental progression that everyone dreams of hearing still today. "Variola Vera" for the acoustic instrumental where the monochord guitar walks and merges with the ambient sounds.

In short, the new HIMMELLEGEME material offers eight themes lasting between three and six minutes. The highlight is the solo guitar which draws attention to all tracks. A sound that stands out, singular, inventive, thunderous, renewed; a sound that is listened to in an absent-minded way, a sound that is listened to in a religious way, an extraordinary sound, an extraordinary sound that literally explodes and that fits directly into my top potential 2021 in view of its intense progressive drifts. The future of prog of the 2020s and 2030s surely lies there. Nothing else to write, listen to it quickly before acquiring it.