Paatos: Kallocain (2004).1

Following their captivating Timeloss, Paatos from Sweden released Kallocain, a 9 track mixture of 70s jazz-progressive and 90s pop-structured and melancholic music. Think of Tillsammans (Together) film made darker and tragic, this is that soundtrack.

Gasoline starts off with a raw violin intro, continuing into a stable rock-vibed song. Holding On settles the mood down, with a great deal of keyboard presence and Petronella right in the front of the mix. Not much is left from the Timeloss style, which I found to be much more interesting and worth developing further into. Again violin is present at the end of this track to bring somewhat slight feeling of folkish mourning.

Happiness starts off promising with truly old-school Rhodes chords. It builds up slowly upto Petronella's taking over. The chorus is strong and catchy; "Suddenly my only friend is loneliness...", although Paatos never quite got it right with the lyrics. This catchiness will infact bring any hardened listener right back to the atmosphere Paatos has crafted on this album. As an important note, the name Kallocain comes from an iconic Swedish novel.

Absinth Minded begins eerily, with plenty of electronica flavor left over from Quits on Timeloss. It drags with a purpose as the title suggests. This song grows back into the "analog mode" with the band taking over in a massively airy finale, but it should've lasted few more bars longer. Notice Mikael Akerfeldt used the line "absinth-minded" on Ghost Reveries.

Look At Us is a straight-forward pop-song. If you're familiar with Cardigans, you'd notice the same juxtapose of music and lyrics; uplifting music fitted with mournful or depressive lyrics.
I can only speculate this album shares a lot of its ideas with the novel, having never read it.

The weakest track on the album Reality, now taking back to the eletronica style. The drum track is disappointing knowing what Huxflux has shown on Timeloss. The lyrics are barely convincing. The chorus seems to break the song in half. Only the final guitar/mellotron melody salvages the song. I can almost visualize the band boringly slapping this one together.

The highlight song, Stream is a jazzier song, more in the vein of Timeloss (I bring this album in this review a lot only because how good it is). Gone are the cold digital instruments, this one is pure warmth and longing. Especially the introductory piano which reminds me of the Nordic countryside. Mellotron is here for emphasis. Everything in this song is what Paatos is, it's definition. The guitar takes over with mellotron chords in the back. For a true progressive rock fan from Finland, the finale is impressive. Truly going back into the 70s freely moving music and massive mellotron chords, it is near perfect.

Won't Be Coming Back keeps the inspiration going, with a definitely worthy chorus. Huxflux's drumming is back to being colorful, lively. I'd rather not see Paatos releasing a third album with fewer and fewer of these gems.

The 9th and final song In Time, is a ballad of some sort, Rhodes, Petronella, and a flute. Around 2:30 the rest of the band joins. It is a lazy flowing song, that closes the record sinking into background.

The band plays music that's risky - the multiple styles of music present will divide the fans, and perhaps confuse some. They take the extremes, 70s progressive rock and the modern electronica, but what's in the middle, pop-songs, should just be left outside for solo projects instead.