SOUNDBORNE – Hallucinations

SoundBorne is an Instrumental project composed of a group of Norwegian musicians coming together by fate or accident, depending how you want to look at it. The word SoundBorne means “transported by sound.” The band put together their debut album over a period of several weeks during the summer of 2007 and it was released in early 2008. The band is already working on a follow-up album with a new vocalist Rick Holmen who recently joined.

The line-up for Soundborne is Stian Dahl (guitars), Jørn-Arild Grefsrud (acoustic guitars), Morten Granheim (bass), Torkil Riiser (drums), and Lasse Finbråten (keyboards). It is evident that these musicians have talent and a good command over their craft. Hallucinations is a very complex album, almost making it difficult to follow since there are so many changes and variations in the music as you go from one song to the next. Maybe, looking at the overall picture, that is good since it is so rare to find an album with such qualities today. Most albums have the same sound and signature all the way through — but, not this album. It’s a coin toss really as to what might come next. Hallucinations keeps you guessing all the way through. The album has 13 tracks with a play time of 45 plus minutes — perhaps a bit short for that number of songs. What is interesting is that listening to these songs doesn’t give off a vibe that they are short in length. Pretty clever if that was the group’s intention in the long run.

The opening track “The Race” is a fairly hard tune with “Detective” right behind it. “Space” quickly takes a different route and is more spacey, in a sense, with a subliminal eerie shadow. “Unreal” does a 180 and regains a more intense flow. “Creatures Of A Fairy Tale” has a real strong Prog-type presence with a slight mixture of Folk and Jazz. “Weather” has a David Gilmour solo work sound to it in the beginning, which turns into a powerful collage of instruments, the acoustic guitar being the most evident. “Echoes” is a pleasant-sounding track — one of the better songs with some powerful bass and nice lead guitar. “Lullaby” sounds just like the word itself. Very acoustical in nature and mellow to boot. “Le Roi Soleil” has a strong Folk influence. Basically two acoustic guitars play through the entire song. “Chase” really seems to explode after listening to the last two tracks. Again, this is one of the better ones on offer. “Lava” almost sounds like a Metal tune as it opens. It is arguably the hardest or heaviest track on the album, even though that was probably not the intention. This might be the best track on the album. “Funky” has an interesting groove to it and is almost weird-sounding at the same time — intriguing in nature. The closing track “Locomotive” ends on a positive note. There is some real nice cymbal work throughout this tune, not to mention some great-sounding lead guitar.

Overall, this album is a strong Instrumental album with influences from Hard Melodic Rock, Norwegian Folk, and Jazz. Don’t let the Folk and Jazz throw you, however. Most Instrumental fans will like this album — maybe not all 13 tracks, but a good majority. It also has several strong acoustical tunes for those with a slightly milder taste.