Thursday, February 20, 2020

Hooffoot-The lights in the aisle will guide You (Paura Di Niete PDN002)


Hooffoot is a Swedish Prog band from Malmö. Two of the members (guitar and bass) have played in my band, Øresund Space Collective. This is their 2nd record and like the first, all recorded analog and with amazing sound production. The album features 4 long instrumental tracks. The band is primarily guitar, bass, drums and keyboards but they have 5 guests as well to compliment things and they actually play quite a major role on some of the tracks.  Side A starts off with the 13min ttitle track which starts with a short drum solo. A nice melody and some dual harmonies from the guitar and keyboards in the first section. A major change occurs about 4mins in with a shift in the feel of the music with a more driving bass line and some violin by Samuel Lundström. It gets really heavy and intense as well. Wow.. what a song!

The next two tracks bring a bit of jazzy inspiration in with the addition of Göran Abelli on trombone and Ida Karlsson on saxophone. Track 2, Pablo Octavio- 1st Departure starts very dreamy with some Fender Rhodes piano and a spacey vibe. The horns enter in as the bass line starts to change the mood.  There are a lot of different elements to this with some great guitar and love the way the wah guitar matched with the horns. Brilliant and then they quickly switch gears to something more complex with short solos by everyone and different keyboards here and there. Then a trombone solo, sax solo, and that damn killer bass line. Wow…


Side B starts with Pablo Octavio- 7th Sea.  This starts off fairly traditional but then is more rocking with some more incredible bass lines. Pär is just mindblowing. Wow…  Lots of great guitar playing on this track. I should also point out they have a great drummer as well. All the musicians play at a super high level. Fantastic.  The 14min Krematorium (Arrival for Autocrats) is the last track.  The keyboard and bass follow each other in a cool way as the trumpet plays an interesting role.  This is good old Italian movie soundtrack music from the 70s.. Love it..  What a brilliant album. I get into it a different way each time I hear it.  Please don’t take 5 years to make the next one.. This one was recorded back in 2017, so maybe the next one is already done!! We will see. Great work guys (and one gal) and I love the story behind the cool cover as well.



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for writing about this album, checked it out the other day and it is awesome. :) Had I known about it last year then it probably could have made it into my top list. :)

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