BLÅKULLA

BLAKULLA were a five piece band out of Sweden releasing this one album back in 1974. Listed here under Symphonic we also get some Heavy Prog and Folk as they offer some variety. Yes they chose a name that rhymes with Dracula and we get that somewhat haunting album cover but the music doesn't fit what the band seem to be hinting at. CREAM and DEEP PURPLE were influences but after hearing that opening track for the first time I think JETHRO TULL were an influence as well.

It's interesting to me that of the seven tracks with lyrics they only wrote them for that opener, choosing rather to use words from a Swedish poet from the 1800's and a Finnish author and others while of the two instrumentals they chose one from a Baroque composer from the 1700's. By the way one of the things that is a plus and a negative are the vocals sung in Swedish and they don't always work especially the harmonies on by far the worst song "Idealet". I'm also disappointed with the vocals on "Maskinsang". Not big on the classical sounding guitar and sound on track seven with the long title composed by the Baroque guy.

The three songs I am into include the opener I already touched on as it's kind of folky with good vocals, love the acoustic guitar here. Track four is my favourite despite being under 2 minutes but it's an instrumental that has tons of depth with the bass and drums as the guitar solos over top. Why is this the shortest? Well we actually get four tracks around the 2 minute mark and my final top three is another one of those called "Varldens Gang" where we get another example of good vocals.

Right from the get go when I started doing reviews I decided that I would never add or subtract from my rating based on the bonus tracks. I rarely even comment on them because it's so rare that they are good. Well here's an example where the three bonus track beat pretty much everything from the main album and there's many ratings out there that are pumped up because of those. 3 stars.