Ulf Lagestam
Alien Distortion

Alien Distortion is what Swedish Ulf Lagestam calls his second album; an album that came to us in a slightly unusual way but it is always fun with albums that arrive in stranger ways. This one does not have the most expensive packaging I have seen with the disc being a CD-R and all that stuff. Still it is what is inside the packaging that matters and not how well packaged an album is. This has a simple yet pretty decent looking cover with letters burning on a black background, simple and effective.

And the music reminds me of music I grew up hearing, maybe it is inspired by that music. The songs are ten and they offer up a great variation with songs that are instrumental and songs with a vocalist. That gives the album a bit of dynamics, and it makes it exciting. The production is excellent, surprisingly good I think you can call it as the soundscape really works and it works for all the songs on the album. Varied yet coherent and that is good, I think we can conclude that this is a very strong production. The songs are classic rock or hardrock, there are some touches of more progressive sounds in the instrumental tracks while the ones with vocals are more traditional rock songs and the vocals are pretty good at that.

I like this album; it is nostalgic yet with a fresh touch. It is great, surprisingly so I would have to say. I think it offers strong songs all the way through, great dynamics and a short enough playing time to keep it really interesting all the way through, Maybe not really that unique or innovative in the creative department but interesting enough to keep me interested and probably it will keep most of you interested as well. It is a fascinating and very strong album that I can recommend to all of you reading my reviews.

As for the songs, I think the opener Riot is a very strong song and a great opener for the album. I also think that fourth track On My Way is a great track, probably my favourite track on the album. But all the songs are very good and none stand out in a negative way, and that really makes this album one of the surprises of last year – it is great, surprisingly great.

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