Last Autumn's Dream
Level Eleven

Level Eleven is the eleventh album by this band, eleventh album in as many years which is a quite impressive productivity. Especially these days when albums are much longer than they were in the past, this is actually 49 minutes long so that is quite a long album for one in a long row of albums tightly released. The cover shows a spinal tap level of volume and a fairly dull background, it doesn’t look too exciting to be honest. Some reviewer said that they started with that dial on the cover and then filled the album with eleven watered down songs. Other reviewers have been either very positive or quite neutral, though many talk of the singer like on of the best in Sweden and lot of superlatives are stated in the press sheet.

Classic rock references with modern sound, that is how the music is described in the press sheet and that isn’t too far from the truth if by classic you mean déjà vu because that is the strongest reference I can think of when trying to put words on how this album sounds. Novelty or originality are not words that can be used to describe this album, for example I know I have heard the first song somewhere before but with other words and released by another artist – I just cannot place which song it is and by whom. And it goes one that way with familiar sounds in a very predictable album, sometimes reviewing albums is like watching the same movie over and over again, you know the lines and everything by heart and this happens the first time I hear this album I can sing along with every song before I have even heard it. The production is average for the genre and I cannot really say that anything on this album stands out and it plays for a long time with 49 minutes on eleven tracks.

Eleven watered down songs is a good way to describe this; soft melodic rock is what it is. And fans of melodic rock will most likely find this album agreeable because it doesn’t suck but it isn’t very good either, the songs press the regular buttons in a rather tired way and I cannot help thinking and trying to figure out where I heard the songs before rather than listening to the album. Maybe they play on the people who fear change and wants everything to be like it was before, to have everything remain as it always was and those people are many so maybe they have a good target audience there and some of them will most likely buy this album and enjoy it. I cannot say that I enjoyed it that much though as it was a bit long and a bit boring.

None of the tracks stand out, well the first is different from the rest of the album but it annoys me that I cannot figure out which song they have plagiarised and it isn’t particularly brilliant either. The rest of the songs are quite tired and unimpressive which is a rather good way to really sum up this album: a piece of déjà vu that is both tired and unimpressive but that still will appeal to those who likes everything melodic rock no matter how tired and unoriginal it is – frankly it is a bit of a yawn.

HHHHHHH