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Skyron Orchestra - Skyron Orchestra

Artist: Skyron Orchestra
Title: Skyron Orchestra
Label: Transsubstans Records Trans 004
Length(s): 42 minutes
Year(s) of release: 2004
Month of review: [04/2005]

Line up

Veronica Lostjarna - vocals
Tomas Modig - guitars
Anna Glans - organ
Jonas Elgemark - bass
Stefan Orstrom - drums

Tracks

1) Free Ride 3.19
2) The Tunnel 3.52
3) Call It Love 5.11
4) Earthy Ground 3.09 MP3
5) Soft Palate 4.01
6) Nobody's Diary 4.21
7) The Doll 4.24
8) Exploding Mind 3.10
9) Pax Aeterna 6.37
10) Alena 4.13

Summary

The music

Bugger, was this stuff really recorded in 2003? Free Ride has a somewhat cheesy organ with a high sixties content, sometimes moving towards Doors' Manzarek. Lostjarna's vocals remind of Renate Knaup's of Amon Duul: somewhat off key and a bit accented. And, oh, there is also an audible hiss at times.

The Tunnel features the same organ sound, but is a bit more grave and slower, with strumming guitar. Call It Love and Nobody's Diary has a musing feel similar to that of The Tunnel. Closer Alena is an instrumental led by the organ, played slowly now, with sparse support from guitar and bass. The other tracks are more up tempo songs, happy almost.

The songs are short, in general with a traditional pop structure. The organ remains the main instrument in creating the melody, maybe even more so than the vocals do. Even though rhythm is constantly and clearly present, with quite a definite fill, it does remain in support of the melody. Now and then the guitar receives room for a solo, always of the psychedelic kind.

Conclusion

If the booklet had said the album were recorded in 1970 I would not have doubted that. This is an album of that time, more than it is one of the current. Skyron Orchestra took the psychedelic vocabulary and used it to create an album now (well, ok, a little over a year ago, that would be). The result is highly melancholic. But since the melodies are pretty catchy and the band move well enough within the chosen vocabulary the result is pretty decent for those into the sound.

© Roberto Lambooy