ANOTHER LIFE – Memories From Nothing

Surprise, surprise: Andreas Karlsson, known as the guitar player of Death Metal bands Paganizer and Ribspreader, has taken a giant step to the side and landed in the field labelled “Progressive Rock”. That is the field which borders on Hard Rock to one, and Gothic Rock to the other side. Several bands come to mind that rode under the same banner: Sentenced, Poisonblack, Nightingale. The last mentioned one was obviously the role model for Another Life, as Memories From Nothing reminds a lot of the last albums by Dan Swanö’s project.

It shouldn’t come as such a big surprise as Dan Swanö handles keyboards on Karlsson’s album, and it seems he also helped out with the songwriting more than a bit. The style and sound here are so close to Nightingale that upon first glance one could mistaken it for their newest output. The first song “Falling Apart” makes it hard to believe that this is a different band. The only thing that gives it clearly away is the vocals. Dan’s characteristic voice is missing from the sound, and while Andreas’ voice is very good, it is only the second best of the two.

Still, the song is a nice rocker, with a slow mid section, which seems a bit out of place and takes away a lot of the flow of the song, but all that is forgotten when the faster rhythm returns. The second song, “The End Of Days” begins well, is similar to the first song with a slow midsection… wait a minute. Yes, indeed, the structure of the track is almost identical to the one before. Fortunately, the album shows more diversity than one may expect now, and even though the same song structure is used one more time in “Firstborn Unicorn”, all those tracks are good. Maybe the order of songs on the album could have been a bit different to make it not so obvious.

Because the Swedes can write other songs too, there are slower, mellower songs like “The Last Goodbye” and “I Am Nothing”, which are both a bit too long, or straight Rock songs like “Everlasting”, “The Everflow” und “Cotton Pines”. The dominant feeling is melancholy, but there also is a certain urge to tap one’s feet. Over the course of the album it seems as if Karlsson found it difficult to get to the point with his compositions where he had gotten rid of all ballast. But since it is his first step on this unfamiliar terrain, one can overlook that and concentrate on the suspicious gleams sent out by some raw Rock gems that want to be discovered.