Spektrum - Spektrum


Year of Release: 2003
Label: Progress Records
Catalog Number: PRCD 010
Format: CD
Total Time: 41:35:00

Sometimes musicians from different bands make an album together and they are labelled "supergroup" and get a lot of attention and sometimes they don't get a lot of attention. Spektrum is a collective that falls in the latter category and just got mentioned in the news section of a Dutch progressive rock magazine, iO Pages. A real shame, as this Spektrum is formed by first class musicians who have made a very refreshing and progressive album. The members come from top Swedish bands like Galleon, Cross and Grand Stand and are completed with female singer Lizette, who could be the Swedish Alanis Morisette.

The album is very keyboard orientated, but that is no surprise if you see that with the exception of Göran Fors (bass), everyone plays keys! The songs on the self titled album sound very fresh and melodic, and listening to the album did not give me the feeling that I heard it somewhere before. After the short intro, the first song "Land Of Longing" opens with a solid guitar riff that gives the song a heavy edge and introduces you to the voice of Lizette. The next song, "Now," is one of the best songs of the album and here Lizette's voice strongly makes you think it is sung by Alanis Morisette, but it is not. This song also has a very nice bass solo and one of the best keyboard solos I have heard in a long time: this one gave me goose bumps and made me play this song over and over again, what a great song! "Perpetuum Mobile" is an instrumental that starts as a song to get a baby to sleep, but builds up with lots of spacey, analogue keyboards and a great guitar solo at the end. Two more gems of beauty are "The Quest" and "Ivory Tower," again laced with lots of analogue synths and the album ends with the up tempo "A Chemical Release"

Spektrum is a fantastic album, written and performed by very talented musicians that seem to have a fondness for analogue keyboards, something I can only encourage! It is a refreshing progressive rock album and should get lots more attention. Let's hope they will not leave it with this, but make more of this great music. On their website you can download an mp3 sample and I bet if you download it and play it, you'll be hooked. Just like me.

Similar bands: IQ, Pendragon, Pallas

[This review originally appeared April 2003 at the ProgPower Online review site -ed.]


Tracklisting:
Spektrum (0:22) / Land Of Longing (5:39) / Now (9:24) / Perpetuum Mobile (5:55) / The Quest (5:16) / Ivory Tower (5:57) / A Chemical Release (8:52)

Musicians:
Lizette von Panajott - vocals, additional keyboards
Olov Andersson - keyboards, acoustic guitar, mini bells, vocals
Göran Fors - bass, vocals, Taurus pedals
Göran Johnsson - drums, vocals, electric guitar, additional keyboards
Hansi Cross - electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, additional keyboards

Discography:
Spektrum (2003)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin SE

Added: May 29th 2005
Reviewer: Marcel Haster
Score:
Artist website: www.progressrec.com/spektrum/
Hits: 1717
Language: english

  

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