As a matter of fact I actually never really liked Beardfish; Rikard Sjoblom's previous band, which came to an end in 2016. Gungfly's latest album called The Unbendable Sleep was released last year and that notorious album is now followed by the new album On Her Journey To The Sun. The eleven new tracks unfortunately remind me too much of good old Beardfish, especially songs like Of The Orb and My Hero, which are both very keyboard dominated. My two favourites on this album are the two instrumental songs called Polymixia and Keith (The Son Of Sun); especially Polymixia which is extremely weird, experimental and great fun to listen to, while Keith is completely different from that track, but also great progressive instrumental rock. I have always been and still am a true Yes fan and therefore I really like the song Old Demons Die Hard very much, as it truly reminds me of the great Yes sound of the seventies. The River Of Sadness, the longest track on the album, is a great progressive epic song with a very simple but rather addictive chorus. Besides the two Beardfish-like songs, which I mentioned before, I also do not really like Over My Eyes, as that one is a rather boring acoustic song filled with violin and piano. All in all I would describe On Her Journey To The Sun as a mix of a couple of great progressive rock songs and a couple of Beardfish-like tracks. A good, but not spectacular album by a more than average band, consisting of (besides Sjoblom): Petter Diamant (drums), Rasmus Diamant (bass guitar), Sverker Magnusson (keyboards), Martin Borgh (keyboards) and David Zackrisson (guitar). However, maybe this album is a must for fans of classic, progressive rock embedded in the seventies. Listening advice: The River Of Sadness and Polymixia. *** Martien Koolen (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
