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These lads, hailing from Gothenburg, kick off the album with an instrumental, semi-psychedelic tune making me think of the great "Buckethead". At this point I definitely was positive and in a good mood, looking forward to more of their playful, interesting mix of new and old, spiced up with various other musical flavors, having high scores in mind. However, the psychedelics quickly dissipate and what remains is pop-rocky / jazzy / funky / boring tunes which do not really feel neither fresh nor interesting. Their music is still nice, but the only occasion I would listen to this is either when driving, as it feels sort of like music for the road, or when wanting to go to sleep. I am considering giving this record to my mother for Christmas, and I probably will.
I'm pretty sure there are loads of people out there appreciating their music, and SoS is probably a popular live act as well. If you are the average radio-listener, and have a thing for 70s music or so, the grade given by me on this record should pretty much be ignored, and perhaps be replaced by 7-8... One of the main reasons I have for not liking this is that even though the vocalist definitely can sing, he has a very standard-sounding and "unpersonal" voice, and this together with the lacking playfulness showed on the first track makes Sparks Of Seven, except for the analogue synthesizers perhaps, sound like any student-related band I've been (forced to) hearing over the years at the university. There are two instrumental songs on the album, "Sparx:7" mentioned above, and a track titled "Lost", and these are definitely my favorite tracks.
Not having done much research on the band, and never heard of them before, I still get the feeling these guys actually might be or become quite successful. Perhaps one should not be that surprised, considering what people seem to like, but it still makes me feel like I have missed something important... Still, no matter how hard I try to see their greatness I fail. This music is boring, and I feel I have heard it all before. But as said above, if you are a mainstreamy pop / rock kind of guy, give this band a try and you might notice the hidden greatness I've not been able to perceive. So no matter how much I want to give these lads a higher grade the fact still is that their music does not hit me, it rather glances right off. If my hunch is correct that these blokes might make it, I wish them all the best, but they will have to do a lot better to impress a native "Örebroare" (Nora, more accurately) as me. Finally, they should have some credit for the interesting and unusual artwork, even though I think the girl on the front page should have a little more meat on her for my liking.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Sparx:7 |
| 2. Move Me On |
| 3. Sunrise |
| 4. Heroines Of Rejected Souls |
| 5. Damnation Of It All |
| 6. Death Of Us |
| 7. When None Was Great |
| 8. Destructor |
| 9. Stay Free |
| 10. Lost |
| 11. Superior You |
: 48.35
| Buy other Sparks Of Seven albums |
