Soen - Lykaia Revisited

Soen      

Lykaia Revisited

Silver Lining Music

Music press can get right up my nose.  Instead of celebrating another great Swedish rock band who have already acknowledged their influences and whose drummer once played for another band, they jump upon one journalist’s comment of “sounding like..” and write only paragraphs to back that up.  It’s the same lazy claptrap that the motoring press said of my car’s ability to undertake motorway travel which has now gone beyond 135,000 miles.

Soen create memorable atmosphere and play a heavy progressive rock/metal.  They offer intricate music with a welcome return to rock with a more commercial appeal in the clean,  melancholic vocals from Joel Ekelöf,  yet balanced perfectly with their own metal riffs that to my ears don't sound like anyone else.

Each track displays catchy song craft, passages that ebb and flow with subtlety from thundering walls of sound to ringing guitars.  Short memorable riffs augment the quality lead guitar work.

You will gather that Lykaia Revisited is a re-mastered version of Lykaia which came out in 2017.  The sound is marginally better and there’s 2/3 extra live tracks depending upon your preference for digital or CD. It’s a shame this re-mastered version didn’t come with a separate full live album leaving the original intact, even if the final price reflected this.  Be assured, both albums are worth your plastic folding stuff,  but the original version finishes perfectly with the eight-minute God’s Acre that fades out to cap the original release.  Drummer Martin Lopez says however, that all the band felt that Lykaia could greatly benefit from being re-mastered whilst also sealing  the Lykaia era perfectly.

Concentrate on the fine music and not the comparisons made by others of this band.   May I thank reviews editor - Lee Vickers, for his personal copy of the 2017 version for comparison and for the opportunity to review and enjoy this updated version of perfection.

NE