Between Spaces – Between Spaces (MLP 6tr)

I’m not 100 % in what genre to place this Gothenburg based band. Opening track “Lies” has a bit of garage rock attitude, almost a new wave vibe and then suddenly a heavy rock break and in comes… a saxophone!? (Sorry, sax is my absolute pet hate). Singer Mikael Lilja sounds like he’s been influenced by anything from Johnny Rotten and Iggy Pop. “A Silent Room” has a different kind of approach with a slightly proggier touch. I honestly don’t really know where to place this band musically. It is quite intriguing and it’s honestly nothing a listen to on a regular basis. The song has quite a lot of different moods and vibes and definitely falls under the progressive banner. Melodic, garagy and progressive. Side A finisher “In Memoriam” takes quite a different turn and starts out leaning more on soft folky piano music. Maybe a reference to Jan Johansson? The vocals are fine, but the Swenglish pronunciation and crammed in sentences is a slight bit annoying to my ears. The song itself is really interesting and the build-up is very dramatic and thought-through. When the crescendo solo part kicks in it’s really really good, with some really cool unexpected chords popped in. Loved that! Side two opens with “At The End” which starts out in an interesting proggy vein, to move into a more straight ahead avant-gardist, almost gothy verse. Quite hard to pin-point where the band has picked their influences. “Fear Of Being Inadequate” kicks off in an almost hard rocking up-tempo style and continues as a really good proggy rocker, clocking in at 8:45. The production is very analogue sounding and works really well with the music. The record finishes with the track “Tempus Fugit” which also starts out with some mellow Jan Johansson:ish piano. An intriguing composition, I must say, with nice strings blending in with the piano. I’m afraid I’m not a huge fan of the vocals, but musically the song is an interesting, well-composed and well-arranged piece, going from the soft folky intro into quite heavy guitar and bass chugging with some interesting keyboard and violin melodies and soloing. It made me think a bit of Swedish proggsters Anekdoten, which is really good in my book.

/Janne Stark

Year: 2021

Label: private