Short Reviews [Salva - 2018 - "Off the Deep End"]

Only two years from their last album, and Swedish quintet Salva are back with their fifth album. I enjoyed ‘Sigh of Boreas’, so was looking forward to this one, but for some reason this just didn’t gel at all. Yes there are some wonderful vocals and harmonies, plenty of Seventies style keyboards and loads of guitar, but there is something about this that just doesn’t work. In many ways the whole album feels quite one-dimensional and when I played it for the first time I had real issues getting through to the end, as it felt as if it was almost a combination of “prog by numbers” and Seventies classic rock with some orchestral and choirs thrown in for good measure. By the time I had played it three or four times I had got to the point where I was tolerating it, but by now I was just feeling quite bored. The spark just isn’t there for me, and I can’t explain why. Possibly the song quality isn’t what it could be, as there is no doubt the guys can play and sing, but this album was a struggle for me, and given the amount of music I have to listen to, for me this wasn’t worth the effort. Possibly I will feel differently if I play it more, but I just don’t have the inclination to do so, as there are times on numbers such as “Brickshort” where it actually feels quite amateurish in the vocal approach.