Lykantropi
Spirituosa

According to one of the more trustworthy metal sites on the web a big danger facing Swedes is a time vortex, spiralling backwards in time with Nazi romanticising parties in the parliament and a loads of bands living in the past where this band I am reviewing today is one of them, they like the sixties and seems to be dreaming wet dreams about that decade – it wasn’t better then, not even the music. The press material also tells of spiritualists and occultism and melancholy, the artwork even looks like something from the past. And I find myself wondering why so many wants to look backwards when time keeps moving forwards, sure we could learn from the past but why keep repeating it all the time? And most people don’t even repeat the good stuff.

This is nostalgic rock with folk influences; The Mamas & The Papas seems to be an inspiration for the band. It seems like this is an album from 1973 that has been remastered and released, some obscure thing that never was released before, but it isn’t as it is a new album from this year. Sure it shows variation, but it also lack pace and originality. Still, there is a certain charm and it has some appeal in the dynamics between vocalists and that they sing in their native Swedish tongue in some song and such things. And folkish rock is also less common than the Sabaton crap so that could be interpreted as an album with more credentials than just being a nostalgic thing – but I am not sure about that.

It is an album that feels a little bit tired and slow, and it lacks originality. But at the same time it has a sort of life and charm that makes it appear somewhat likeable, perhaps thanks to it being recorded live in studio. But it is also an album to grow tired with pretty quickly as it completely lacks originality, the best thing is the ending track that is sung in Swedish – but all the songs are almost equally tired so it is mostly the language that makes that track stand out compared with the rest. Nostalgia is pretty boring and this album is no exception to that rule, it just feels meaningless to make something that has been done many times before – stapling boring clichés in tired nostalgia makes me yawn.

Not worth tossing into the garbage perhaps but not really worth investing in either – unless you are a fan of the nostalgic variety of music and especially the folk rock version of it. I can be nostalgic too but if I want old rock music I can listen to some old rock music that was actually fresh when it was released and not just some emulation of a style that has been outdated for millions of years. Lykantropi makes a decent album but I there are already more than enough nostalgic stuff out there and this doesn’t offer anything that hasn’t already been offered by others and to survive we need to stay away from that time vortex that is growing ever larger thanks to stuff like this.

HHHHHHH