Mackaper was created by Markus Hulthén and Per Nyström as a side project to their band The Concretes. They sat down at two organs, jamming forth new song ideas, which then was completed and in the end released on the instrumental album “When All Is Sad and Dawn”, which I wrote about a couple of years ago.

Now the project has grown even more, and the duo has become a quintet, where the two brothers Elias and Ville Krantz now handle the bass and the drums respectively, instead of their computer colleague, and furthermore Gustav Nygren has joined the band with his saxophone. You can listen to the result in the song here below, “Staden vaknar” (“The city awakes”). The title describes the atmosphere well, in this new sound with more depth and warmth, with a soft, smooth, saxophone that paints new textures in the soundscape. The song is taken from their upcoming album”Mot ljusare tider”, which will make us stop and catch our breath in the middle of the Christmas stampede on December 19th.

Mackaper on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Kompaniet, hailing from Sala, takes us back to the early seventies’ psychadelic and progressive rock on their debut album “Vi i dalen”. Well, in fact there’s a range of influences that meet on the album, like blues, folk, jazz and rock which is also significant for that era when artists started to mix genres and experiment wildly. The songs started to live their own lives, both when it comes to length and structure. Kompaniet have found their own strong character in the middle of all this, as they cruise between Pink Floyd-influences, blues, Swedish progressive rock and folk music, from a relaxed ambience to drama.

Yes, I’m quite impressed by this debut. I don’t know more about the band than that they started in 2011 and that there are ten members in the band. You can find two songs to listen to here below, with the second one being the finishing 16 minute long “Nere i Dalen”.

Kompaniet på Facebook – på Spotify – på Wimp – på Bandcamp

Tystnaden ljuder
Nere i dalen

In the beginning of last yearwe wrote about Stone Carpet and their single “The Sound of a Thousand”. Now they’re back with an ambitious project, with the plan to release 4 EP:s during this year. On each EP they explore one of the different genres which have influenced them during the years.

First out in May was the three-track EP “Exordium”, where they set out for a more progressive direction. The song here below, “The Plan”, comes from this EP. In July the second EP “Narratio” was released; an EP that focus more on metal.

A fun project, and I’m quite curious about what the upcoming EP:s will be about, especially since it’s so well executed in these two first EP:s. You can listen to their music on Spotify and follow the band on Facebook.

The Plan

The trio We Could Build an Empire released their debut album in the end of last year. I listened at first to the three songs they have available on their Bandcamp page, and the alternative rock, melodic “Ice”, which you’ll find here below, quickly caught my attention. It wasn’t until I listened to the entire album, though, that their music started to really impress me.

Here I found a band that wasn’t just about piling up melodic alternative rock songs, but more about a band that wanted to do their own thing in the borderland between nineties-inspired alternative rock and progressive rock with hints of metal. It’s quite a varied album which manages to continuously surprise me with it’s twists and turns. I found myself get caught up with the riff-grinding “Dogs”, which breaks off after “Ice”, and drawn into the suggestive “The Power” after which the melodic “Fall Free” takes off. A real album and an impressive one.

You can listen to the album on Spotify. Follow the band on Facebook.

Ice

One could guess from the band name that Yngling (Youngster) is a young band, a band name they explain with:

A youngster is someone you can both love and hate. And contrasts are what our music are made of. And then we like boats too.

I wouldn’t be able to guess that they were youngsters from listening to the music, though; it’s an instrumental thematic rock, with progressive vibes, ambience and like they say, contrasts where they build up the songs beautifully. And if they hadn’t written anything about it, I would have said something about the guitar layers too. But there aren’t any guitars at all. Good music in any case.

They recently released their debut album which you can listen to on Spotify or on Bandcamp. You can also find Yngling on Facebook.

Snowglobe

Support the artist: Buy “Yngling” – on iTunes – on Amazon