
Garden Of
The Mountain King
Independent Release
2013
“The Mountain King” is the second album by the Norwegian progressive rock band Garden Of. Influenced by bands like King Crimson and Opeth, Garden Of offers the listener an interesting, kind of old-school sounding progressive metal record with a contemporary twist and just a pinch of Norwegian folk music. Before we start discussing the music I have to mention that the sound of “The Mountain King” is so crisp that it’s absolutely perfect. Even in the parts where the whole band seems to playing as hard as they can, they still sound united producing music, as opposed to noise, which bear in mind, can happen very easily, and has happened in similar cases many times.
Let me start by saying that I did not care for the singer’s (Øyvind Hokstad) voice. Maybe it was just me but I found a certain “trying-too-hard” element there which just did not sit well to my ears. As for the music... I don’t know. There really isn’t much to be said about “The Mountain King”. All seven tracks are really good, with many elaborate parts where the whole band plays the hell out of their instruments. Take “Facing the Crisis” for example, the guitar solo there is the epitome of the kind of hard-to-play, cool sounding prog rock guitar solo. But knowing how to play your instrument is only part of the equation. I mean, songs like “Human Construction”, “The Mountain King” and “Four Pillars” are absolutely flawless from a technical point of view. I found that the most important thing this record lacks is heart. To be honest, I never cared for bands that only focus on how hard it is to hit the hardest-to-play chords or play a really difficult back tempo rhythm on the drums. I think that music (as all forms of art) should make you feel something. I am sorry to say that “The Mountain King” features some perfectly tuned guitars and some great drumming, that reached my brain, but went nowhere near my heart. Imagine that I listened to the whole album three times without hitting the repeat button once.
Garden Of are nowhere near being a bad band, they are a group of skilled musicians who know how to write music maybe better than most bands out there. However, they sound like they are afraid to have fun and get personal through music, thing that makes their work, in a way, boring. This is really evident in “In Pieces” and, “Ghost” (which are approximately 11 minutes long each). In the case of “In Pieces”, the song starts off strong, but somewhere within the 5-minute soft instrumental break, the attention of the listener is lost and is not regained until somewhere around the 9th minute with some impressive high pitched guitar playing. As for “Ghost”, it is the perfect example of a well composed musical piece with all the potential to become a great song (a Kyuss-sounding almost oriental intro, a strong steady guitar riff, a powerful chorus and interesting breaks). However, the phrase “too much of a good thing” applies here. The combination of all these great ideas somehow does not seem to work and the track sounds too crammed with good ideas.
This is exactly what is wrong with the whole album. While “The Mountain King” is a collection of excellent songs, those songs do not add up to an excellent album which is capable of standing out from the rest.
Let me start by saying that I did not care for the singer’s (Øyvind Hokstad) voice. Maybe it was just me but I found a certain “trying-too-hard” element there which just did not sit well to my ears. As for the music... I don’t know. There really isn’t much to be said about “The Mountain King”. All seven tracks are really good, with many elaborate parts where the whole band plays the hell out of their instruments. Take “Facing the Crisis” for example, the guitar solo there is the epitome of the kind of hard-to-play, cool sounding prog rock guitar solo. But knowing how to play your instrument is only part of the equation. I mean, songs like “Human Construction”, “The Mountain King” and “Four Pillars” are absolutely flawless from a technical point of view. I found that the most important thing this record lacks is heart. To be honest, I never cared for bands that only focus on how hard it is to hit the hardest-to-play chords or play a really difficult back tempo rhythm on the drums. I think that music (as all forms of art) should make you feel something. I am sorry to say that “The Mountain King” features some perfectly tuned guitars and some great drumming, that reached my brain, but went nowhere near my heart. Imagine that I listened to the whole album three times without hitting the repeat button once.
Garden Of are nowhere near being a bad band, they are a group of skilled musicians who know how to write music maybe better than most bands out there. However, they sound like they are afraid to have fun and get personal through music, thing that makes their work, in a way, boring. This is really evident in “In Pieces” and, “Ghost” (which are approximately 11 minutes long each). In the case of “In Pieces”, the song starts off strong, but somewhere within the 5-minute soft instrumental break, the attention of the listener is lost and is not regained until somewhere around the 9th minute with some impressive high pitched guitar playing. As for “Ghost”, it is the perfect example of a well composed musical piece with all the potential to become a great song (a Kyuss-sounding almost oriental intro, a strong steady guitar riff, a powerful chorus and interesting breaks). However, the phrase “too much of a good thing” applies here. The combination of all these great ideas somehow does not seem to work and the track sounds too crammed with good ideas.
This is exactly what is wrong with the whole album. While “The Mountain King” is a collection of excellent songs, those songs do not add up to an excellent album which is capable of standing out from the rest.