Wheel in the Sky
Beyond the Pale

So, they have taken their name from a Journey song, a song from 1977 album Infinity. This Swedish band that can’t be accused of having the best of imagination when it comes to the name has released one album before this one so the one with skills in mathematics knows how many albums they have done now. This new album is called Beyond the Pale, the question is if it means that it goes beyond the pale creativity of musicians today or something else, I think the latter. The cover looks okay but nothing special and considering that along with the name I think there is a logical guess to how the album will sound and that guess would not be far from the mark even though they are not cloning the band called Journey.

Musically it is seventies hard rock, nostalgic rock, it is in the vein of the likes of Wishbone Ash and The Who to name just a few of them. It will be familiar to the one who listens to the seventies hard rock, and I think it has an appealing production – not a fresh production but appealing. Decent vocals and variation and okay depth are also things I can say about this album. The playing time is kept relatively sensible, albeit I think it could have been slightly shorter, not a very big deal though. The bigger deal is probably that they don’t really seem to want to create something new, something of their own – the music feels a little bit borrowed from somewhere else.

I think the album works; it is pretty good and enjoyable to listen to. The songs are all good and the album is catchy enough to have you nodding along with the rhythm. The weak point is the lack of ideas, the fact that they don’t really come up with anything that doesn’t feel familiar and I come to think that they might have changed something in The Matrix every time I listen to the album, it gives that feeling of déjà vu – probably the most used word combination in Hallowed. Nevertheless, despite all that familiarity it is an easy album to take to, it is easy to like and especially all you geezers living in the past will find it most rewarding.

They may not really create anything for the scrolls of music history but they do create a good album with good tracks. But it isn’t easy to let go of that feeling that you have heard it before and in the end I don’t really think this album goes beyond the pale and it will just fade into the same oblivion as most of the albums I review.

HHHHHHH