Seven Impale emerged from Norwegian mists a decade ago, fully formed and audacious. Annoyingly young and obnoxiously talented, the Bergen sextet laid down an impressive template on City Of The Sun: a precocious debut album that receives a snazzy, 10th anniversary “Solar Flare” vinyl relaunch here.
Darker and knottier than anything by their ultra-melodic Scandinavian contemporaries, they side-stepped clinical perfection and recorded these songs without a click track – or indeed brakes. The result is a collection of songs powered by youthful exuberance and intense collective chemistry.
It’s also a prog record that eschews the most obvious influences in favour of the unhinged and obstreperous clatter and skronk of Van der Graaf Generator and Red-era Crimson. Plenty have paddled in the same murky waters, but few have done it with such eye-popping vigour.
City Of The Sun has countless moments of prodigious prog indulgence, but it’s the tooth-dislodging controlled chaos of Eschaton Horo that most loudly confirms Seven Impale’s mercurial brilliance. A labyrinth of mutant syncopation and inspired tempo changes, its eight, frenzied minutes whistle by in what seems like half the time.
As the Norwegians lock into one of their lurching, counter-intuitive grooves, all six musicians are locked in and audibly exhilarated. Sweat drips from the walls. Saxophones are honked with mischievous glee. Blisters are displayed as badges of honour.
Elsewhere, different extremes are explored. Windshears is a beautifully languorous moment of restraint, but a fiendishly inventive one. Closing epic God Left Us For A Black-Dressed Woman goes the whole prog hog, mixing complexity and raw power for the sheer convoluted hell of it.
One of the finest prog debuts of the 21st century, the record showcases a hopeful young band neck deep in magic and clicking effortlessly into gear.
City Of The Sun: 10th Anniversary Edition is on sale now via Karisma.
