Per Wiberg - All Is Well In The Land Of The Living But For The Rest Of Us... Lights Out
Despotz Records
Progressive Avantgarde Rock
4 songs ()
Release year: 2021
Despotz Records
Reviewed by Alex

Per Wiberg has an enormous amount of pedigree due to his involvement with Spiritual Beggars and Opeth. I obviously knew that. What I did not know is that Per has a solo project on the side as well. Cleverly titled All Is Well In The Land Of The Living But For The Rest Of Us... Lights Out is a four track EP which unfolds like a story and hits very cleverly on almost every phrase contained within the title. Unlike so many other releases where track by track description is a travesty (I personally hate to both read and write those), All Is Well In The Land Of The Living But For The Rest Of Us... Lights Out demands to be reviewed in this fashion and so I will try.

1 is mysterious and mood setting, dark piano/synth chords layer together with acoustic guitar strums. 1 would play great as a soundtrack for the movie, specifically an ominous thriller. With 1 you get immersed in the music, yet you seriously don’t know what is coming next. 2 then attempts to play dark metal, its gothic chords reminding me of Fields of the Nephilim or even Depeche Mode. Instead of staying the straightforward course though 2 grows chaotic, reeling and alarmist, revealing the disturbing side of the EP with Per’s withdrawn voice fitting perfectly. Disturbing takes on yet a different and elevated meaning in 3, where meandering cascades of piano notes and rustling cymbals intermix, with little logic or concrete pathway. Quickening female oh-ahs seal the fate and dementia sets in. After this trip I really wanted 4 to be ultramelodic and relaxing. It almost gets there for me with synth and expansive feeling, but Per obviously had a different vision as 4 didn’t entirely eliminate the mental edge and didn’t let go completely. There is still Pink Floydian discordant edge to 4, so it certainly ends the EP without relieving anxiety.

It is obviously impossible for me to know what was in the mind of the artist at the times of All Is Well In The Land Of The Living But For The Rest Of Us... Lights Out creation. To pigeonhole this into any stylistic boundary is reviewer’s suicide, but I really wanted to match Per’s cleverness and attempt giving a title to my review by playing off the EP’s title. The best I could come up with was This Is Ominous Until We Start Climbing Out Of This Hole … Only To Fall Further Down Without Hope.

Killing Songs :
Alex quoted 80 / 100
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