| CD REVIEW Lars Eric Mattsson |
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Band : Lars Eric Mattsson Anyone familiar with the body of work delivered by this Finnish guitarist (personally, I've known the guy from the mid '80s) will know of his love for Classic Rock (those among you nót familiar with him and having come to this page by mere luck, are now so advised), and in the image of some of is earliest influences (take, among others, Deep Purple) he's occasionally worked with orchestras to add their specific sounds to a song. However, it's also always been a dream of his to do his own “Concerto for Group and Orchestra”. That's what we get with this new instrumental album of his. To those who might think it was just a question of inviting an orchestra to play some music over his own, forget the idea! Nah, all music was well thought-out in advance, and Mr. Mattsson took it upon himself to also write in different styles of Classical music, from Baroque (including the use of clavichord piano) to Spanish-styled (the only acoustic track on the album, by the way), to Mozart (nice complexities underneath) and Beethoven (seemingly more simple and straight-forward stuff) styled material, and possibly also some of the Italian Master Composers. To the uninitiated, the 12 tracks on the album may all sound somewhat alike (most of 'em providing a nice mixture of Classical and Rock music), but I assure you there's occasionally huge differences. Some parts are written with a Rock guitar in mind, other guitar parts are written expressly in Classical tonalities, then played on the electric guitar. And where some of the Classical instruments' backing may be sparse at times, at other passages the orchestral arrangements are nicely complex and bombastic. Also, some tracks were written for a combo of an orchestra with a complete band (minus singer, of course), while other were written for orchestra with electric guitar. In other words, Mattsson managed to bring a very nice overlook into Classical music...be it that he played the guitar electrically enhanced (excepting that Spanish diddy). Unwilling to go on too long a search on the Internet for a specific site where you might hear some full-length track off the album (or more), I'll direct you to the album's page on either iTunes, Amazon, or any other of the trusted online sales sites, who usually provide their potential clients with 30-second samplers of all tracks on an album. At any rate, here's an additional nomination to my “Best Albums Of 2011”-lists. In the category Classically influenced Rock, it will definitely stand a proud first place! 98/100 Tony. |
