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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Damn Swedes know how to rock...,
By Boris Kaplun "asmox" (Reston, VA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Move (Audio CD)
Metal comes in many flavors - the technical, the fantastical, the extreme, the flamboyant, the experimental, the elaborate, the simplistic yet cranial crushing, and any number of other things. Metal fans, however, tend to be far more stringent and like to catalogue their metal in a slightly more primitive fashion - the true and the false. Consequently, many metalheads will approach blindly and leave in utter disgust at this apparent display of what can only be construed as paradoxical pop-metal. Their loss, I suppose.
Enter Freak Kitchen, brainchild of guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh who, by all standards, should probably have a solid home in a top tier progressive metal band. He seems to have other plans though, as he's too busy stuffing melodies and leads that are rich with metric and harmonic complexity into three minute songs that are safe for mass consumption. I honestly have no idea how they do it - every single song they write is as catchy as anything you might hear on the charts (and will just as easily get stuck in your head for weeks at a time), and yet is filled to the brim with instrumental acrobatics that are subtle enough to not induce any kind of inaccessibility, but are obvious enough to please music snobs around the world. Bassist Christer Ortefors and drummer Bjorn Fryklundh don't necessarily do anything that will make a tech-head look twice, but considering the context in which they are playing, they manage to successfully inject some goofy stuff throughout... including occasional double bass, off-kilter cymbal work, slight rhythmic variations, and plenty of neat bass lines that augment the guitars instead of following them in parallel. The main attraction, of course, is Mattias himself, who makes abundant use of non-standard chord progressions and really comes through with his many leads and solos which somehow manage to fit perfectly with the mood and flow of what's basically the quintessential radio single, yet are also as complex and demanding as anything by the likes of Ron Thal or Ron Jarzombek. He also squeezes some strange noises out of his guitar, for example in "Herion Breakfast" where he sounds like somebody dialing a number on a telephone. Not only can Mattias play, but he's also a very decent vocalist. Every letter of every word is pronounced clearly enough for you to be able to tell what he's talking about without having to dig through the liner notes - a notable accomplishment considering that he's Swedish and still carries a somewhat obvious accent. Their lyrics consist of humorous, light-hearted social commentary that can sometimes be thought-provoking in a faux-intellectual adolescent sort of way, but generally doesn't take itself seriously at all and serves only to make one giggle. After listening to bands like Freak Kitchen and fellow partners in crime Bumblefoot, it becomes apparent that many metal acts out there are in more and more of a frenzy to make their music ever more extreme in one direction or another, often forgetting what it's like to simply have fun. This is a pretty good wakeup call.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant metal/hard rock,
By
This review is from: Move (Audio CD)
Simply put, this music is beyond the restrictive and often inaccessible confines of traditional progressive rock/metal. Every song is as catchy as top 40 music yet is just as complex as bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Rush, ect... Don't believe me? You'll just have to hear it; it's impossible not to love every song. I'm a big fan of progressive rock but sometimes I wish those bands would focus more on the actual SONG than their musicianship - well, here we have Freak Kitchen who do exactly that. Don't get me wrong the musicianship is incredible; Mattias IA Eklundh is my favorite guitarist outscoring masters like Petrucci, Lifeson, and even Vai. If I were to give an accurate description of this music allegorically...I'd say Metallica meets Zappa. The lyrics are hilarious and the music never takes itself too seriously, but damn can these guys play. This album, "Move", is the best Freak Kitchen album hands down; it's even better than their latest album "Organic". Start your Freak Kitchen journey here and then pick up their other albums and the Freak Guitar solo albums as well.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clever, funny lyrics and great music,
By Grahame "gsd" (California, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Move (Audio CD)
If some record company were smart they'd grab the rights to distribute Freak Kitchen in the USA. If these guys were better known they'd be winning Grammy awards all over the place.
Their music is great - not just well played, it also grabs you and gets you moving. The lyrics are brilliant - funny and clever with biting social commentary. It's hard to put them in a genre - rock bordering on metal? Or maybe pop-metal? Well, whatever it is they rock!
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