Sweden's 'Hasse Fröberg Musical Companion' (HFMC) continue their adventure as 'We Are the Truth', which was released in November 2021, is already their 5th album, following the very good 'Parallel Life' in 2019. And the least we can say is that this new baby is a progressive jewel that mixes all the influences of fifty years of this style with 9 compositions that are mostly composed of long developments exceeding 6 minutes. For all those who like to discover a rich and dense album, listen after listen, you're in the right place because 'We Are the Truth' can be savoured with immense pleasure and the parallels with the great names of progressive music are legion throughout the 69 minutes that the album lasts.
One could write a book describing every nook and cranny of each track and that's why I won't venture into such a task. So, to make a long story short, I'll just tell you about these intense moments, starting with the 7 minutes of 'To They Who Rule the World' which integrates everything you want to find in this style with successions of soundscapes that get tamed little by little but that finally hook you so much that they give you this irresistible desire to listen again and again. The following tracks all provoke the same feeling of walking in a labyrinth where each corner is a total delight and we let ourselves go completely to this diversity of ambiences which borrow, here and there, from the best of Emerson, Lake & Palmer', 'Kansas', 'Yes', 'Genesis' or even 'Saga' but also from more recent formations such as 'Marillion', 'Arena', 'Pendragon' or 'IQ' and I'll certainly let you add many others. Moreover, even if the long developments may seem complex at first, 'Hasse Fröberg' has done everything possible to offer us harmonious melodic lines that immediately become engraved in our memory and make all these tracks ultimately very accessible. The eponymous title track and the short 'Every Seconds Counts', for example, have a remarkable emotional force, and the album ends with the sublime 'A Spiritual Change', which sums up all of 'HFMC's overflowing creativity by taking us on a magnificent musical journey one last time.
In short, no need for a long speech, just the music because, as you will have understood, this last album of 'Hasse Fröberg Musical Companion' could very well be a kind of reference album of progressive rock through the ages. 2021 ends in beauty with 'We Are The Truth', which will undoubtedly join the ideal music collection of many progressive music lovers... | |
