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BRIGHTEYE BRISON: Stories

Release

Style

In the seventies, the high days of progressive rock, Sweden was not really a leading country, Abba seemed to be the ensign-bearer of music from Northern Europe. Nowadays we know better, the number of progressive rock bands is countles, and above all… quality is present too. And it is really remarkable that a lot of thee bands are going back to the roots of the seventies, it’s certainly the case with the guys of Brighteye Brison. The band was founded in 2000 by Linus Kase, Daniel Kase (his brother) and Kristofer Eng being the first group members, later joined by guitar player Johan Öijen. The main influences, according to themselves, are ELP, Genesis, Gentle Giant and Yes, but links to Kayak and UK are very obvious too. With such references nothing can go wrong, also because the guys are succeeding perfectly not being a copy of the past.

The short title track illustrates immediately the higher mentioned references to UK,  both instrumentally (exuberant presence of keyboards) as vocally (crossing between Kayak and The Beatles). Especially ‘Patterns’ has that overwhelming symphonic sound, like we know from the first albums of the dutch icon of progressive rock, where the voice is considered as a full-fledged instrument. ‘Isolation’ reminds certainly of that other Swedish band A.C.T., naturally because of that typical poppy voice and harmonic samenzang, the guitar solo seems to come directly from the Kayak repertoire but their music can also be compared with their colleagues from the Progress gang, like Grand Stand, Liquid Scarlet and other Magic Pie. A bit of mellotron amplifies the seventies feeling, a relative short but very intense track.

The Battle of Brighteye Brison starts as a crossing between UK and ELP, melodic symphonic rock, sustained by a funky bass, among a lot of other instruments they also use very often curch organ, the spoken quotes remind me of our own ‘Mindgames’. And indeed, the typical tempo changes (with some space for heavy guitar riffs) with a great variety of soundscapes and instruments are very chracteristic for these Swedish guys: true progressive rock like only few bands are delivering nowadays, even the fellowmen prog icons of The Flower Kings have abandoned temporarily their roots.

‘Late’ is an excellent composition, but it reveals at the same time the only minor point of the album, the vocals are in my opinion are not at the same level as the rest of the album, I honestly prefer as a lead singer. The vocal interplay between the musicians is really extraordinary, also for example on ‘Life inside’ with beautiful keyboards of Linus (Grand piano, mellotron, moog and other Hammonds). Now and then Brighteye Brison uses some woodwinds (saxophone, trumpet) like in ‘All love’, their music has only few counterpoints with the Canterbury scene, but they use a lot of classical patterns. ‘We wanna return’ contains influences of keyboard oriented prog like UK, pop-rock, classic, AOR and on certain occasions it sounds even a bit like a fragment of a rock musical.

In a nutshell, ‘Stories’ is a varied and refreshing album with strog compositions, an  absolute must for each fan of ‘true progressive rock’, it seems like mainly Swedish bands are capable to produce it.
 

Musicians

1 Stories(2:54)
2 Patterns (8:37)
3 Isolation (5:00)
4 The Battle of Brighteye Brison (6:57)
5 Elenah (1:14)
6 Late (5:22)
7 Life inside (5:31)
8 All love (9:02)
9 We wanna return (5:33)
10 Stories (reprise) (1:50)

Brighteye Brison (2003)

Stories (2005)

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Last updated: 17 april 2006 .
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