Tribute
New Views

Preamble: I apologize in advance…

the review turned out so long that you’ll grow old reading it. But try to see the bright side: once finished, you will have a long beard like Gandalf and will finally be retired… If that’s not enough, since today I feel generous, I promise that whoever manages to read it all will receive as a gift the precious vinyl of the latest collaboration between Cannibal Corpse and Marco Carta, namely “Anal Destruction Of The Heart”.

The debut “New Views” by the Swedish Tribute falls in the Orwellian 1984. Almost nothing is known about them, and I won't tell you the effort it takes to scour the web for some information to shed a (faint) light on the mysterious cloak of darkness that envelops them.

First problem: how to “label” the band? In simple terms: in-what-the-heck-genre-can-we-box them?

Progressive rock? Crossover? Symphonic rock? Celtic folk? New age? Disco? (yes, there are harmonies worthy of Abba, after all they’re compatriots), Synth pop? Thai bagpipers? Percussionists of mammoth skeletons from salt deserts? Grey Metal (a new musical trend which is somewhere between the dark and anxiety-inducing reggaeton disco the Pope has been working on for years, in collaboration with Enrique Iglesias, and the sunny and overly relaxing atmospheres of the first Burzum)?

Now, in my humble opinion the right question to ask is: how-the-heck-would-I-ever-know?

It is indeed pointless to emphasize that when it comes to sub-genres I am hopeless, and that this album sounds to my increasingly thin eardrums, worn out over the years, like a succulent mixed fry. So, let's move on to the (very few) pieces of information I have…

…Despite hopping like mad grasshoppers from one city to another in an exhausting tour between homeland, Germany, and the Netherlands during the 80s, the CDs and vinyls they recorded remained for a long time a succulent rarity for a restricted niche of mouths. A bit like the exquisite land sole, unfortunately extinct before the Big Bang.

This was until a few years ago (in 2012, because we like to be precise), when the label Sireena Records, graciously, decided to reissue their sacred debut digitally, thus feeding several palates that had missed it in that distant 1984 forgotten by the Lady (I mean Mother Nature, who recently became a widow since Friedrich killed the little-loved and tyrannical husband, a cabaret performer and illusionist in his spare time, with three lapidary words. He was also known to the general public by the simple stage name “God” - not to be confused with the famous Ronnie James, who also died when God, several decades late, discovered he had stolen his stage name).

Now you may be asking: Who the heck are these Tribute? Whom do they pay tribute to? Are they just another cover band reprising the famous songs of the Zecchino D'Oro in a grindcore key, perhaps?

As always, the answer is within you; however, it is wrong!

The Tribute, in fact, consists of what can be defined as a micro rock orchestra: the multi-instrumentalist and little genius Gideon Andersson (he plays bass, guitar, mandolin, drum- and, along with Christen Rhedin, is also the composer of almost all the music) accompanied by his two sisters, Lena and Lina (poor Lana had been sheared recently and thus couldn't join the group for much of the recordings: they left her lazily grazing the wild grass growing at the foot of the Scandinavian heights)…

…Where were we? Ah, yes: the two sisters, in addition to playing percussion and drums, also sing in some tracks, adding an original new age sprinkle to the music, which goes like cheese on macaroni.

The band also includes the aforementioned Christen Rhedin (who plays keyboard, grand piano, percussion and collaborated with the Abba on the famous track “Mamma Mia”), Dag Westling (electric guitar, voice), Per Ramsby (also keyboards), Åke Ziedén (guitar and bass) and Pierre Moerlen (drums and percussion).

And then xylophone, vibraphone, marimba and yes, even the tubular bells so dear to old Mike, whose latest albums are rather disappointing because after wandering around fields he has more awns in his ears than a Yorkshire cocker, and they have prevented him from realizing he had already recorded 120 versions of “Tubular Bells”.

A saxophonist should also have participated in the recording, whose task was to play a empty cistern, but there were technical problems because it seems his mouth wasn't wide enough.

The other members of the band wanted him to undergo cosmetic surgery, but they didn't want to contribute financially. Besides this interesting gossip, the band, not having many funds, wanted to steal the water cistern from the neighbor's lawn, but didn't know how to drag it into the recording studio.

Despite herculean efforts (it seems the gentlemen went to drink liqueur at the village bar, entrusting the joyful task to the three choir sisters) they failed to transport the cistern to the studio, and Lana (the grazer) got her right buttock shot by the neighbor's Winchester, a grumpy old man who was already on his third whiskey at 6 in the morning and could tolerate two women trying to steal his precious cistern, but a goat absolutely not.

But let's move on to the music, which, despite the absence of the cistern, is not disappointing: the band's sound is definitely more influenced by Michele Campovecchio than by other artists of the progressive scene, but it's much tighter and less psychedelic, more aesthetically inclined and less intellectual.

It's the progressive spirit of the eighties era, as evidenced by a wilder pop use of synths, which paint lively and catchy motives, more physical than cerebral. So forget the experimental and jazzy prog-rock of Soft Machine and company: there's indeed a slight jazz touch, but the Tribute do not shine for cerebral complexit and avant-garde unpredictability.

This is probably their only flaw; but, through the wise use of polished elegance as rare and a sophistication of harmony from outclass, they manage in their own way to transform this “weakness” into an asset.

Their music has an enthusiastic, feverish, sometimes even aggressive touch. Their airs are electrifying, often pumped to the limit: the musicians manage to transform simple motifs, supported by keyboard riffs, into breathtaking symphonic rides.

The tracks are mostly instrumental, but (when you least expect it) the two sisters get carried away with airy transcendental melodies. Their slightly terrestrial choirs outline soft and delicate new age watercolors, almost bashfully pure; but they do it just because they can and so remain silent, as they are shy and get offended even when faced with mere curiosity.

SPOILER: I know this is the typical moment in which you'll stop reading this horrible jumble of words and retreat to the bathroom to meditate on the meaning of life.

Well, it is my moral duty to warn you that this morning I sold a copy of this delightful CD to your wife (a fake copy, of course), and right now, as you snuggle on the bowl and grab the latest issue of Novella 2000, she is putting it in the stereo. So, in fact, you will listen to the album even before reading my analysis of the songs; all this, of course, makes this a massive spoiler. END SPOILER

Songs like “Icebreaker” (always there at the bar getting drunk on liquor, what the heck…) or “Too Much At One Time” (in the series, stuff them less and above all: smoke them one at a time), present themselves with a hard and compact punch, rock-hard enough to border on the energy of hard-rock.

In the former, a playful keyboard melody (which with its exuberance brought to mind the mythical “Everyday” by good old Steve Hackett) is thus enriched by a choir that anticipates by a few years the sprightly Enya of “Orinoco Flow (Sail away)”.

A classical piano then fits right in, while a jazzy bass and then the frantic roll of the drums enhance everything.

In the latter, the guitars take precedence: electric and acoustic merge in a melodic alchemy with a Celtic flavor, and towards the end the track explodes in a stunning keyboard solo.

“Climbing To The Top” and “Unknown Destination” more or less follow the same scheme as the previous songs: playfulness and adrenaline-fueled grit are the predominant features.

In “A New Morning”, instead, the scale tips clearly towards new age: a crystalline piano and an acoustic guitar intertwine in a sublime harmonic play, the supporting beam on which this tender madrigal balances.

On the instrumental, rise the heavenly choirs of the Andersson sisters (including Lana, who had finished grazing the daisy sprouts and could finally sit without curses in Caprese, at the time of recording), which carry us into the ether and beyond, until penetrating the cotton clouds.

One notices it because suddenly, when the choirs come in, you can't hear anything: and curses the clouds, which not only daily pour rain on him but in this case also prevent him from enjoying the metaphysical flights of fancy in which the aforesaid music precipitates him. However, there are also positive aspects: the ascension remains an excellent method not to get pooped on by birds, even though, as we know, theirs is the only type of poop that brings luck.

A vibraphone (I think) ennobles the track and moves us by painting the transience of the human condition in a semi-lunar landscape; but these are tears that do not hurt, and indeed boast the melancholic serenity that follows the acceptance of pain. All this is crowned by the peaceful coos of the flute which, elegiacally, weaves a melodic plot reminiscent of Morricone.

But let’s be “dark and square”, since the “clear and round” does not satisfy us: of all the songs discussed so far (except for the last track) we couldn't give a darn about.

Oh yes, because the last track, which gives the disc its name, and which is perhaps the main reason why I’m serving you this delightful CD, awaits you at the bend for a heart-stopping ambush: it is indeed a monumental suite almost 22 minutes long.

The song of the birds, with which the mammoth piece opens, immediately points out, without frills, what the source of inspiration is: nature. The introduction, covering more than a quarter of the piece, is entrusted to the acoustic guitars, which sketch a pastoral canticle where bittersweet nostalgia and lazy relaxation mix. Rarely have I heard more delicate and moving folk-new age harmonies cascading from the instrument. They begin softly and then rise in pathos, levitate to reach a peak, and then another peak, and then yet another, fast, slow, and then accelerate again, intertwining supremely with a memorable synthesizer riff.

The enchantment of these first eight minutes lives on in the euphoric serenity of a moment crystallized in a drop of amber, and it doesn’t matter how much rain will flow over the resin, nor if the wind will shake the tree and cause the branch on which it has dripped like a tear to fall to the ground; nor if the atmospheric agents will subsequently dissolve the branch into the soil. Because that single moment, jealously kept inside the drop, will continue to breathe in a parallel temporal dimension, a space-time expansion that defeats the black lady in the great marathon of existence.

And it’s precisely then that the new age choir enters, an otherworldly epiphany lasting not even a minute, because suddenly, the real jam begins: the drums come in forcefully, a funky bass acts as the skeleton for the melody embroidered by the keyboards, and then, briefly, the electric guitar arrives with a heroic riff to coagulate everything into a solid and vigorous sound.

The jam continues for five minutes, with the phrasing of the instruments perfectly crossing each other, in a sophisticated game of mirrors.

Then, abruptly, everything collapses, and a choir of tribal polyrhythms outlined by different percussion instruments enriches the track with an unprecedented touch of primitive darkness, bringing us back to the origin of time and reminding us of the mythical “A Different Drum” of Gabrielian memory.

Thus, the eternal Nietzschean return consumes: the planet's history is condensed into tiny drops within, each of which is a slide depicting a moment in the Earth’s history.

But it’s not over: the rhythm changes again, and the ascent towards metaphysical peaks resumes. This time the choir is composed of male voices, to which female ones then join, while xylophone and vibraphone (at least, I think) moan, sucking us back into the ether; and the guitar paints an epic melody.

Suddenly we find ourselves at Christmas in Scandinavia, during the Middle Ages: there’s snow and everyone is celebrating while a triumph of fanfare fantasies is painted by the bells scattered throughout the city, which call and respond to each other in chorus in the breeze crystallized by the cold.

The mind evaporates and we fly far from the small cluster of houses, gliding over the changing Swedish prairies, up to heights where the fog clears, licked away by the sun as if it were cotton candy. And it’s only when we lack oxygen that we fall sharply beyond the clouds, downwards, among the fluttering commas of birds in flight. The grass below us glows with an iridescent green, and the rivers appear as furrows carved by the planet’s own tears. The lush coniferous forests hold indecipherable secrets in their twilight meanders: mysteries that not even the sharp shards of profane light manage to penetrate. Because darkness is and always will be impermeable to the arrogance of light, a vain scrutinizer who sacrifices magic in the name of truth.

As the landscape fades, the finale consumes, and the guitars jubilantly retrace the melody of the choir, and we understand that life is like a circus, constantly changing scenery but always offering the same show: everything changes, and everything remains the same, and every truth finds a way to be sincere only if one manages to find a glimmer of authenticity even in its opposite.

This, therefore, is not music: it is an anthem to nature, a celebration of life that vibrates with love like a guitar string stretched between the material world and the celestial one.

So, my final advice is: sell those filthy and useless designer Calvin Klein underwear and buy the CD!