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IMAGINARY FRIENDS
A.C.T. are a Swedish band who play a pretty unique mix of pomp, progressive and pop rock to great effect on this, their second album. Whilst there are influences aplenty which are easily identifiable on various
tracks, the band manage to meld these in a unique and interesting way, and everything's done so smoothly and (seemingly) effortlessly that they switch from one genre to another almost without you noticing.
The album is basically split into two, with six individual tracks followed by a suite of songs based around the theme of relationships...
Opener 'Take It Easy' starts with the sound of an orchestra warming up, before a Hammond riff by keyboardist Jerry Sahlin kicks off the song proper.
An upbeat AOR rocker with a typically catchy chorus, the track also introduces the wonderfully effective instrumental interplay between Sahlin and guitarist Ola Andersson. Andersson reminds me a great deal of It Bites-era Francis Dunnery, both with his riffing style and his soloing. Indeed, It Bites are a major influence over the whole album, particularly the sound the band were making on 'Once Around The World'.
Following this, 'Hippest Flop' is more of a pop rock effort, and reminds me of early 90's band Jellyfish, with its upbeat infectious chorus and cod-reggaeish rhythm. The band's excellent harmony vocals are well
utilised on this song - as they are throughout the album.
'A Supposed Tour' is apparently about an aborted tour with a known band in which the band turned up every night but never got to play!
It opens with the rather overused device of a radio changing channels (a la 'Wish You Were Here'), before kicking off in a far more metallic style somewhat reminiscent of 'Images and Words' era Dream Theater, although vocalist Herman Saming's upbeat and 'quirky' delivery - always singing rather than screaming - brings it closer to rock than metal.
'Biggest Mistake' is an ambituous tour-de-force, coming on like a prog version of Queen in parts (particularly the bombastic intro section, with its Brian May-style soloing), whilst also containing references to ELO,
Rush and a host of others. Hell, there's even a snippet that sounds like The Simpson's theme tune before the closing section, where a nifty bit of Brian May-esque riffing brings this excellent track to a close.
The title track appears to be about those who can't tell the difference between characters in a soap opera and real life and, appropriately, has a rather dreamy otherworldly feel to it.
The piano of the intro leads into a bass-led verse before another of those infectious choruses, with the band doing their best Beach Boy's impression. The song also has a wonderful instrumental fade-out ... something A.C.T. have perfected on a number of the tracks here.
You can probably guess the theme of 'She-Male', and appropriately this track comes on rather camp, think Queen's 'Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy' for a general idea - although the chorus and mid-sections of the song
are more bombastic.
The long suite of related songs that is 'Relationships' begins with the string-laden whimsy of 'At The Altar' before a punchy AOR riff kicks off 'Svetlana'. This features plenty of guitar heroics from
Andersson, before breaking into a strange cod-reggaeish section with some 'off the wall' lyrics (something the band are no strangers to!) before some more guitar bravado gradually blends into the choral keys which
introduce the next part...
'No Perspective' features a gallery of different vocal styles before an upbeat guitar riff kicks off 'Second Thoughts', a short but superb instrumental piece pitched somewhere between Dream Theater and Saga
territory. This runs into 'Mr Unfaithful' where a heavy underlying guitar riff is backed by some more of the choir-esque keyboards.
A haunting one fingered piano motif backs up Saming's vocals before launching into another pomp rock workout. Jerry Springer even gets a name check in this amusingly (and bitingly) written section. A jaunty guitar/ keyboard playoff section seemingly ends this track, before the solo piano gradually leads back to the chorus again - an excellent lesson in song dynamics!
A spiralling synthesiser effect leads into the short 'Gamophobia', essentially a solo instrumental by Jerry Sahlin, before strings and piano combine to lead us into 'Little Beauty', with occasional shafts of heavy
guitar punctuating the whimsical pop feel of the verses. Then comes a rousing chorus which has shades of Foreigner to it.
The album closer is the short coda 'And They Lived Happily Ever After' with plenty of plaintive guitar soloing rounding things off nicely...
...Except there's the almost obligatory hidden track, in this case a downbeat ballad, 'Catherine', written and sung by drummer Tomas Erlandsson (keyboardist Jerry Sahlin wrote the other tracks).
Erlandsson has a much deeper voice than Saming, so this track is a nice contrast to what has gone before.
Overall, this is an excellent effort from A.C.T.
The performances throughout are top-notch, the production superb, and the songs both instrumentally complex yet very approachable. No niggles with the content, although it seems a shame that an album as good as this, which has the potential to reach a wide audience, is somewhat hidden away on a specialist melodic rock label. Hopefully though, the band will increase their profile with this album and I look forward to seeing where they go from here!
Tom De Val, 5th July 2001
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