KARMAKANIC & THE AGENTS OF MERCY - THE POWER OF TWO

Interesting live album of the combining tour of Karmakanic and The Agents of Mercy. The musicians are the same on all tunes, the only varying factor is the lead vocals spot (Nad Sylvan for the AOM parts and Göran Edman for the Karmakanic material, although it seems they both participate on each other songs as backing vocalists). There are three songs from the first Agests of Mercy CD, three by Karmakanic, an instrumental solo track by keyboards player Lalle Larsson and a Genesis cover (Afterglow) sung, obviously, by Sylvan. The album has strong and weak points.

The good parts are clearly the brilliance of all musicians involved, truly masters of their instruments and proven artists by their own merits for a long time, the excellent production and the live sound recording, absolutely perfect. The weak parts lie on the songs selection and the fact that the CD is only a single disc (too little room for too much talent). The three Agents Of Mercy tunes: I really didn´t like that Nad Sylvan/Roine Stolt project, at least not much of their debut. It looked too much like just another Genesis influenced stuff that was more interested in working Peter Gabirel´s former group whimsical side than to try to replicated their beautiful melodies. However, I must say that at least two songs (Heroes And Beacons and Jesus On The Barricades) came across much batter here than on their studio counterparts. Roine Stolt´s guitar on the former is specially moving.

The Karmakanic tracks are the big disappointment here: that side project from The Flower Kings bass player Jonas Reingold has much better stuff to present than the three tracks they performed here. Not that Where Earth Meets The Sky (the best one), Do You Tango and Eternally are bad tracks. They are good, but I was really expecting them to perform their tryully great stuff like Send A Message From The Heart or Entering The Spectra or any other of their better work. Maybe I was expecting too much for them to perform such long and complex epics, but since they proved they were more than capable of doing exactly that on their other projects (like Transatlantic playing the entire 78 minute Whirlwind suite live on their last tour), the tracklist provided here is rather frustrating. Besides the inclusion of a drum solo and a keyboards solo in a single CD for two bands take precious running time from what could be at least a couple of good songs instead. I don´t know anybody who really like those explicit displays of technique to be recorded for posterity other than the musicians themselves (and even then, not all of them).

In the end it´s good to see those seasoned players do a good cover of Genesis Afterglow.

Conclusion: considering the amazing talents reunited here, this is a rather disappointing CD. The incredible musicanship and performance of all involved, the excellent sound quality and some good tracks saved this album from being a failure. Still, I´m not convinced that this is the best those bands can give to audience in a concert. For such great names involved, it doesn´t show as much power as the title of the album suggests. Karmakanic specially still owe us a ´real´ live album. Three stars.