SALVA: Off The Deep End (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Coinciding with the Swedish band's fifteenth year of existence, the release of "Off the Deep End", Salva's fifth album released like its predecessor on White Knight Records, marks the end of an intense two-year creative process for the quintet in which a new bassist came to replace Fredrik Linqvist.

Without unveiling all the substantial marrow of this review, the least that can be said is that the music proposed by Salva on this new opus is eclectic. It starts with a fanfare with a first epic of almost 10 minutes whose beginning and end offer us a symphonic and melodic metal worthy of Nightwish, between which are ed a slow tempo theme, a nice guitar solo and an interesting instrumental bridge. The same recipe will be used for the 11 minutes of the conclusive 'Brickshort', a pompous and grandiloquent title that closes the 70 minutes of the album.

Between the two, Salva takes us with more or less happiness in other directions, starting with a hard-blues Deep Purple/Uriah Heep style declined throughout the first three parts of 'Clarity', with digressions towards a very melodic AOR, sometimes close to Asia ('Clarity II'). The bass is generally very melodic, and the 70's tones of the keyboards reinforce the analogy with the great old ones.

And as if all this wasn't enough to distract the listener, we can find a good touch of folk cohabiting with metallic protrusions in 'The Ghost of Fives', as well as a good AOR supported by piano/violin accompaniment in 'Clarity IV'. All these elements put together could look like a gigantic tote bag, but the concern to preserve above all the melodic aspect of its music allows the band to cement all this in a coherent way and to maintain the attention throughout this long opus.

If Salva's first productions were greeted with a certain scepticism, it is now clear that the band has acquired a beautiful maturity in composition and execution. Very accessible music but far from being linear, this new delivery by the Swedes will probably attract the greatest number of people. That's all the harm we wish them.
- Official website

SALVA

OFF THE DEEP END

WHITE KNIGHT

PROGRESSIVE ROCK