Europe
Bag Of Bones

The furrows of the creative path often thin out into expressive variants; multicolored auras trailing an invisible iris seal the corresponding variants of life.

In extreme synthesis, this type of logic also characterized the journey of Europe, a Scandinavian band that perhaps unwittingly had to sell the price of success for their ascent towards artistic maturity.

Indeed, it might be more accurate to speak of a confirmation of their inherent creativity because, upon listening to their latest work "Bag of Bones", one gets the impression that their initial stylistic embryo has nostalgically refined at the dawn of the present.

After all, following the excellent "Wings for Tomorrow", an album of pure Heavy self-reference, the planetary allure of "The Final Countdown" and its two emulative sequels (Out of This World and Prisoners in Paradise) amounted to nothing more than the commodification of AOR talent with Hard Rock veins in favor of a pop rock, albeit of rare artistic craftsmanship.

And so, after the inevitable implosion at the dawn of the grunge era, 13 long years thinly veiled the band's last tremulous remnants. This continued until 2004 when the rocky screech of "Start from the Dark", awakening that tacit stagnation, ushered in the band's second act.

The prelude of a decade, filled with live and studio albums, thus saw a total of 5 releases, the last of which is encapsulated in this "Bag of Bones".

Here, the band, beyond sponsoring labels, accentuating even more the solutions briefly touched upon in "Last Look at Eden", flows back into its Alma Mater's core through initiatory references projecting shadows into the recesses of Deep Purple, Badlands, and Led Zeppelin.

The disenchanted determination thus erupts in the karst dystrophy of the album's opening notes; music is sometimes a mere aesthetic call, and to the Norum/Tempest duo, the realizational sophism emerges with manifest precision.

Like a tried-and-tested couple in their performing complicity, the guitarist and the Vocalist, leading a silent artistic conflict, impose on the already occurred a reinterpretation of their partnership.

To a considerable extent, the performance impact sees Norum's rear guard, a karst auctioneer, roar ferociously at the opportune moment; like a conscript endowed with masterly authority, the mental arm of Europe, flowing fluidly within this ninth release, leads to a constructive opposition with Tempest's perseverance of crystalline roughness: stylistic elaborations of foxy American caliber in a union with lively melodies of clear European origin.

This pattern openly emerges in the opening trio; hard-hitting guitar riffs impose their trademark on the latencies of a torrid blues already in the first track Riches to Rags, evolving maturely into what is the true herald of the album as well as the initiatory single: Not Supposed to Sing the Blues.

Of vague 80s style is instead the sharpness of Firebox where Eastern middlings lay a soundscape sewn by the refined tailoring of Mic Michaeli.

But it's only a prelude to a sweet claustrophobia; plagued by his own confusion, the quiescent narrator of the cover rises from expressive nihilism and guides the hand of Norum, now master of his rare intimate flair. The latter artist, capable of quietly traversing evocative pages of amorphous masses despite awareness of a stature limited to appreciation by few. In this, as indeed in almost all the LPs painted by his hand, it is his distinct creative vein that confers golden expressiveness to Tempest's voice.

This track of expressive nostalgia is immediately confirmed by the subsequent Woman my Friend; in the incipit of a dark pianistic prelude, the song, on the notes of a gloomy and compelling riff, brushes against dark greatness. Here, the 70s nuances, blending and confusing into a cryptic acid blues, bring to mind the early rarifications of Black Sabbath where Norum, having shed the guise of Blackmore from Rainbow, dons the attire of Tony Iommi's sulfurous exhalation.

A disguise that, however, does not last long, for in the following Demon Head, not only for Norum do the solarities of Blackmore from Rainbow return, but Tempest's singing is also met by the even sunnier expressions of David Coverdale's Whitesnake.

And still, in the realm of illustrious citations, it's Jimmy Page who claims the role of inspirer of the acoustic ballad with a folk aftertaste entitled Drink and A Smile. A sunny expressiveness of serene times imposes dreamy arpeggios on the rear of Western-rooted rock.

The track returns to more familiar ground with both Doghouse and especially Mercy You Mercy Me, a true musical "sweet treat" sparked in Norum's six-stringed barrel.

The epilogue in a sweet yet pretentious litany involuntarily renders five over-40s fully emancipated from the tear-jerking approval of dreamy Teen Agers devoted to glossy magazines and posters of the various Simon Le Bon and Joey Tempest of their era.

Because ultimately, even though they no longer anticipate roaring stadiums, those posters, now yellowed by the rear view of time, for many still intact in their evocation of the past, at times even unwittingly perform the miracle of intensifying it.