Review by Luka on May 31, 2001.

While the above classification may not seem very appealing to any kind of music fan, this album manages to create a very pleasant feeling and Mr. Vintersorg shows that he definitely has talent for music as he enchants his songs with intricate acoustic pieces and catchy choruses, all swimming in light melody. They may be written in Swedish but they’ll still stick in your head!

The very first thing that repelled me about the album, though, is Vintersorg’s vocals. Weird and annoying. Weird because they sound like no one else by a long shot, and he just has a really strange voice quality, kind of deep but also blaring and irritating. And they’re annoying because they’re crystal clear but impossible to understand if you don’t speak Swedish. Sometimes they even seem funny because they sound so stupid and he sings them so passionately.

On the other side of the spectrum, the music is excellent. Neat, unique guitar riffs that are really turned up on the production. The drum machine is really drowned out but it’s obvious that percussion is just about his last priority. Expert acoustic pieces are abundant and are used on almost every song, and we’re often treated with a really nice wha-wha guitar solo by Andreas Frank, a session player. The music, according to Mr. Tree-hugger, tries to invoke a feeling of nature and it’s splendid beauty. On the liner notes he’s got a cheesy little write-up about how much he loves the outdoors and how it inspired him to write this music. Yeah, the music is great, but try as I might, I can’t really link it with nature. If it inspired him to write the good melodies, great, but just because he wrote it in a forest doesn’t mean they sound like ‘nature’ in any way.

Bottom Line: The vocals definitely annoy me but the light, melodic music is really good. Certainly something different.

Rating: 7 out of 10