Review Work of Art - In Progress 2011

Sweden seem to be a place where conditions for melodic rock music or AOR is quite good, I don’t know how many bands I have heard from the very genre from the very nation but I don’t want to try and count them all today. Work of art is one more of those bands, and judging by the reception they received for their debut album called Artwork (very innovative), they are quite the thing some calling it the best AOR for years and so forth. In Progress is what their second album is called, I wonder if they refer to it as being a work in progress or that they as a work of art is one.

Musically if I say AOR and then you hear this album i don’t think you will be the least bit surprised. It is AOR to the letter of the document where the AOR guidelines are written down. Melodic rock music, super polished sound, the known keyboard leads, the guitar lines, the high pitched vocalist, the catchy choruses every box in the checklist is ticked and this band seem to be very careful to follow these guidelines at least if I am to judge solely from what I hear. The album has twelve tracks and it will take close to an hour to play all of them. Just from looking at the number of tracks and playing time I thought instantly that a little murdering wouldn’t have hurt.

I thought the same when I started to listen to the album, they should have discarded some of the songs, most of the sound the same anyway. Thing is though that this album has been very well received by the reviewers which is just a massive mystery to me as I just cannot see this greatness. Sure, they are good but so is Big Life or Serpentine which I have reviewed as well and so are many other bands that fail to make a real impression. Work of Art’s In Progress sound just like any other band out there in the genre and it is a big genre that has gone on for a long time and there are quite a lot of albums in that very genre as well so I have no idea why people are so positive to this album.

In all fairness there are some good aspects to this band even if they are not that fantastic either but they do have a good vocalist, the sound they have is very good and the video track Epic Fail is a great song. But then? Yeah.

I stumbled upon one reviewer that said Rain was the best AOR song of 2011 which is as wisely said as saying that eating dog vomit will make you more healthy. But then again, same reviewer said this might be the best AOR album of the year as well and that is about as clever to say. I think they are good but so is many albums in the genre, and the thing is that most of what I hear of this album sounds like it could have been done by any other band. This band lack a feeling of an own creativity, they feel a bit soulless, they seem to lack any kind of artistic imagination. Surely no one can call this bands for the Picasso, Dali or Van Gogh of the genre and I do not think they are even creative enough to understand the concept of cutting of a piece of an ear for the art. I don’t think there is much from this band that can be called innovative or really creative and it is like I’ve heard it all before and done better as well.

So in the end I think this a good album but it is hardly anything new and those of us who already have a few AOR albums in our collection have no use for this one at all as it brings absolutely nothing that we haven’t already in that very collection. I would say that In Progress is just one more AOR album, it brings absolutely nothing to the genre.

HHHHHHH

Work of Art In Progress

Work of Art
In Progress