Sven Larsson
Bad Mad Man

He calls himself a bad mad man, Sven Larsson a man who started out somewhere in the nineties and has been seen in many outfits, done albums with a progressive band and and AOR-band. Now it is time for his second solo album which is titled after how he sees himself, at least that is what our behavioural experts are guessing at least. He has a solid history as far as I can make out from the biography that speaks of many known names and such, he has at least managed to enlist help with this album from many skilled and well known musicians amongst other three great singers who helps Sven to vary the vocal stylings on the album.

It is melodic rock of a bit of a calmer kind, not much in terms of tempo of the higher kind here. The different vocalist makes for some variation in that department and all of these vocalists do really very well on this album but other than on the vocal department I would not really call this album varied, it is kind of similar all the way through. There are a pair of instrumental songs as well but they go in the same style as the rest of the album so if you are harsh you might say that they adds nothing to the mix. The album itself sounds mostly like the genre in general and doesn’t really offer anything unique or different, a fairly typical album stylewise I would say.

The album is quite good, well performed, well produced and the songs are generally very good but at the same time the album doesn’t really take off. It feels a bit that it is building towards something that doesn’t really come, I also think that the fact that the album begins better than it ends also adds to this feeling of the album not quite taking off. I still think though that this album needs something more uptempo and catchier to spice it up a bit as the album feels a bit stale as it is. It begins really well however and the first four tracks are really excellent but then it starts to become a bit stale the further the album goes which to me feels a bit unfortunate as there is a lot going for this album.

The first pair of songs along with the title tracks are the highlights of this album, not that the other tracks are bad but not as good and they are a bit too similar to keep this album interesting through the entire album and the instrumental songs doesn’t really add anything to the album either. Well, in the ends I think that I can deduce that this album is a rather good album even though I think that it could have been a bit more varied and a bit more energetic, it feels a bit cautious. I don’t think we can call Sven a bad mad man but we can call him a good musician and this album is a decent testament to that fact.