ISILDURS BANE - MIND VOL.4: PASS - 2003

The next piece of work from Mats Johansson’s MIND series is Mind Vol. 5: The Observatory. It is comprised of a DVD and, even more importantly, a live recording from their September 11, 2004 concert in Diezel, Halmstad in Sweden. Besides the live performance, there are a few new songs in their entirety from the Mind - Vol. 4: Pass. That means that you know what you can expect. For those who have never seen Isildurs Bane live, now is your chance to take it all in. The set list is about the same as their concerts from The Spirit of ’66 and from De Boerderij at the end of 2003. So it’s almost the whole album of Mind - Vol. 4: Pass. Isildurs Bane is a group with an ever changing cast who revolve around keyboard player Mats Johansson and guitarist Jonas Christophs. Up until their last album, they mainly played a variety of instrumental music with lots of personal influences. This kind of music created a very unique kind of ambiance. Starting from their last album, it was actually the songs with the vocals that gave them the upper hand to make a much more accessible album. With the necessary promotion, it could have been successful . Our year end music poll of 2003 gave that album 12th place, which is not bad, considering the competition. The music is flecked with lovely bits of very beautiful guitar playing and the vocals of Christof Jeppsson remind me of Peter Gabriel.

The DVD is put together as a kind of documentary and this fits nicely in the framework of the MIND project. But the fact that it is not recorded in Dolby 5.1 is a disappointment. You can’t use a menu either to zap to the next song or to skip some songs. The documentary clips take away from the flow of the concert, but, luckily, you can just fast forward if you like. The pictures of the documentary are nice to see, but once is enough. They’re not incredibly essential. These pieces were filmed by the band members themselves during their tours from 1988-2004. What is interesting are the new songs whereby 3 of them are completely redone and shown with their corresponding clips. They are very solid songs and are sung mainly by Mariette Hansson. The song “People are Afraid” is certainly worth mentioning. This gives some promise for the next album.

Naturally, the live recording of the DVD is the main part. As I’ve said, all the songs are skilfully played and the fantastic guitar playing by Jonas Christophs and the gorgeous singing of Mariette Hansson and Linnea Olsson deserve an honourable mention.

Isildurs Bane is an experience that you must try. Let yourself be strung along by their eccentric approach to music and enjoy the delicious symphonic moments and the beautiful vocals and guitar solos. This DVD gives you the chance to create your own image with this wonderful music. I recommend it!
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Prolusion. Only six months elapsed since the release of Isildurs Bane's previous album, and Sweden's (rather, Europe's) most profound progressive band is unexpectedly back with their new, eleventh, output "MIND Vol. 4: Pass". However, the work on "Pass", which is again a concept album (of course!), lasted more than two years. The sixteen compositions here are divided into four sections with separate themes, and each of these sections contains four songs.

Synopsis. While regarding the band's >previous album as a masterpiece, I still find that its semi-improvisational nature doesn't fit the concept of MIND laid on >"Vol. 1" and developed on >"Vol. 2". Although the conception of MIND (Music Investigating New Dimensions) as such can imply any sorts of musical discoveries, both of the first albums in this series were nevertheless dedicated to uniting the varied manifestations of Progressive Rock with Classical Music. Well, I am happy to tell you that "Pass", while being different from any of the previous volumes of MIND (which is just natural, of course), is simultaneously nothing else but another, third stage in the logical development of this highly intriguing journey through new music dimensions started back in 1997. The most unexpected aspect of "MIND Vol. 4" is the presence of vocals here (all lyrics are in English), though this is only one of those important factors that form, proper, the innovation of this work. In fact, everything here is marked with distinct signs of a novelty, and if on the whole, "Pass" is closer to Classical Music than any of the preceding volumes of MIND, the overall stylistic picture of the album is as diverse as usual. Five out of the sixteen tracks here are instrumental pieces, and two of them: Fury and Arch (3 & 5) represent Classical Music in a pure form. Contemporary Classical Music with elements of some definitely new music (I used to call such a phenomena Fifth Element) and with and without vocals is respectively presented on the songs: Halo, Heal, Talk, Part, Loss, and Ends (1, 2, 11, 13, 15, & 16) and the other three instrumentals: Open, Self, and Dark (7, 9, & 14). All five of the remaining songs are compositionally so complex and consists of so unusual structures that I just cannot define their stylistics differently than the Symphonic Art-Rock-based Fifth Element with some quantity of a pure Classical Music and the bits of Prog-Metal. These are Cage, Good, Eyes, Idea, and Rage (4, 6, 8, 10, & 12), though the third of them consists mostly of acoustic textures and features in addition elements of Jazz-Fusion and those of music of the East. Of course, all of these cold terms and definitions aren't able to reproduce all the majesty and magic of music presented on "Pass" in general and all the diversity and beauty of the instrumental and vocal arrangements on it in particular. On this album, Isildurs Bane was able to expand Progressive Rock's horizons so widely that any words are helpless to describe this.

Conclusion. I am longing for pathos now: The 'stars' of mainstream are flashing and going out, but such a gem as "MIND Vol. 4: Pass" is and will always remain a classic for the future even if anyone won't be interested in it today. True Art is more precious than gold, and even Time has no power over It.
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