MATTIAS IA EKLUNDH — Freak Guitar - The Smorgasbord (review)

MATTIAS IA EKLUNDH — Freak Guitar - The Smorgasbord album cover

Album · 2013 · Progressive Metal

3/5 · 2015-09-20
siLLy puPPy

Having established himself as one of the 21st century’s most accomplished guitar gods, Sweden’s MATTHIAS IA EKLUNDH proved himself as such with his two solo albums both entitled FREAK GUITAR where he proved to the world you can master the art of many forms of guitar playing: metal, jazz, gypsy swing, flamenco and blues and then add a huge heaping of creativity and new forms of guitar abuse and then blend it all together and make it sound like the most technical shit you’ve ever heard while making it ridiculously exciting and fun to experience at the same time. This kind of majesty is reserved only for the royalty of musical masters and EKLUNDH proved himself to be worthy of such praise having impressed even Steve Vai which landed him a coveted spot on his Favored Nations label. Unfortunately EKLUNDH opted to spend most of his time focusing on his band Freak Kitchen, a band that i have never been particularly blown away by. Well, it was a progressive guitar nerd’s dream come true for me when i heard he was to release his third much anticipated release FREAK GUITAR: THE SMORGASBORD which was reported for a 2013 release. My excitement arose of this news but then was suddenly deflated when i heard that it was going to be a double album. Oh crap! That means there’s going to be lots of filler, or so i thought to myself, but this is the FREAKIE GUITAR dude! Surely it must be up to par with his previous efforts. I kept my hopes high but dammit! I hate being right. This one has some great shit and a whole lotta filler.

My first impression with this album is that EKLUNDH is merely recycling ideas from his first two masterpieces. Yeah, there are plenty of interesting fresh ideas present here but there is far too much mediocrity and the totally unabashed element of surprise is missing from this release. EKLUNDH seems to be going through the motions of the standards he set forth on previous efforts but very rarely fails to up the ante in any way making it feel like he shot his wad on those two and this is sit back and smoke a cigarette follow-up. What really disappoints me about this is that he had a whole friggin’ eight years since his last album to make this one so shiny and brilliant that it could only blow the lid off my roof. Well, it doesn’t. I don’t want to insinuate that i don’t find the technical playing as brilliant as ever. That’s certainly not the case at all. EKLUNDH remains a master of his chosen instrument and SMORGASBORD does not diminish this aspect of his music in any way, but as far as the creativity and well spring of freshness and startling ideas goes, his mojo seems to have been turned down to simmer. Maybe i am just so spoiled and impressed by the first two releases that i have deified this guy and am simply disappointed that his brilliance didn’t align the universe in the proper way so that all bad music and mediocrity is sucked down a black hole only leaving the most creative and fertile musical possibilities. I dunno. Personally i feel he got distracted. He is now a father, has a family and has diluted his earlier passions with a whole host of others. Can’t fault the man for that but can’t say i’d not rather have another masterpiece either!

Really, this should have been trimmed down to a single album and even then it wouldn’t be as interesting as his first two albums, but there are some brilliant moments on this release despite my ranting of how much i dislike this in relation to his others. I mean, mediocre EKLUNDH is still better than say, the best many artists can pump out in a decades long career. The recycling of ideas is the most noticeable thing going on here. There is the same focus on jazz meets progressive metal, unorthodox soloing and effects and his love of metalizing pop songs of yestercentury such as his take on Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore” and the classic song that was on the 70s TV show “The Muppets” in the form of “Mah Na Mah Na.” Both of which are actually well done but a little cliche by EKLUNDH standards. As i said, this album just feels unfocused and more of a side project than his first two albums. Yeah, the production is better, there are more bells and whistles and all that but someone punctured the bag of creative juices and all sounds hollow and recycled to my ears with scant few exceptions (for example “Meralgia Paresthetica” is my favorite track and actually sounds like a logical evolution in the EKLUNDH sound). Disappointing to say the least but still interesting ideas to be found. I can only recommend for anyone just discovering EKLUNDH’s music to start at the beginning with his first two releases “Freak Guitar” and “Freak Guitar: The Road Less Traveled” as those two releases blow this one away. After listening to all three albums it will become apparent why this is true.

Brilliant tracks: “Hells Bells” (AC/DC cover), “Sexually Frustrated Fruit Fly Flamenco”, “Daily Grind Disco March,” “Dogs Of Delhi,” “The Harry Lime Theme,” “Mah Na Mah Na,” “The Nigerian Gynecologist,” “Meralgia Paresthetica”

Throwaway tracks: “Matthias - The Beautiful Guy,” “Peter, I Won’t Drive Another Meter,” “The Swede And The Wolf,” “Mind Your Step,” “Crossing The Rubicon,” “Keep It The Dojo,” “Special Agent Bauer,” “Mandur And Morgan’s Came Safari,” “Safe To Remove Hardware”

The rest are ok to decent, but as i’ve quite clearly opined, nothing on this album blows me away like the entirety of the first two albums.