Kharma - Wonderland

1. Free Yourself
2. Wonderland
3. Knowing You
4. Burn Forever
5. In Chains
6. Standing Alone
7. Part Time Lovers
8. Angel Eyes
9. Ray Of Sunshine
10. Spell On You
11. Don't Close Your Eyes
12. Hold On
13. Wings Of History

Album Cover:

Total Playing Time: 66:24 m:s

Review date: 12/08/2000

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This one was a released a while ago and you've probably seen quite a few reviews around the net already. Most reviewers seem to describing the sound as a combination of Styx and Foreigner. I'll throw another name into the ring - Uriah Heep - I was certainly reminded of the "Sonic Origami" album I've reviewed. The band play pomp AOR with plenty of keyboard to fill out the sound.

Opener, "Free Yourself", grabs your attention with the fresh clean sound that the album has throughout. The organ heralds "Wonderland" and it is used in conjunction with piano to good effect. The pomp overtones, song structure and Goran's Dennis De Young style vocals all combine to remind of Styx. Guitars and vocal give "Knowing You" a good opening before it develops into a melodic rocker than bounces along, with the organ parts giving the first Heep touch. The piano and vocals that start the semi-ballad, "Burn Forever", give a Styx feel that gets stronger as the song progresses.

For "In Chains", the stabbing keyboards and strong vocal harmonies give a Foreigner feel which continues on the mid-tempo rocker, "Standing Alone". For the first 30 secs it sounds like "Part-Time Lovers" is going to develop into a Southern Rock tune, but instead it's Uriah Heep, especially when the organ kicks in. So far the band have hardly put a foot wrong, but the high standards are dropped by the monotonous ballad "Angel Eyes". Despite a very Jethro Tull start, "Ray Of Sunshine" has more in common with Heep & Styx.

"Spell On You" is the song that is going to make the biggest impact on first listen. It's a speedy number with a great memorable chorus. For "Don't Close Your Eyes" the Foreigner blueprint get re-examined. With all this pomp activity, it you'd imagine it's only a matter of time before a tale of princes and kings turns up. "Hold On" is meets those expectations. "Wings Of History" is a slow, almost Eurovision-like, ballad that closes the album in a predictable fashion.

Sometimes it good to look back at what has gone before, indeed the band discuss this very subject on that closing song - Wings Of History. The band take that pomp-AOR sound from  yesteryears, give it the "Scandi treatment" and the result is an album full of classic-sounding songs that still manage to sound fresh. Whither the songs will turn out to be classics, rather than classic sounding it another matter, only time will tell. For the moment, what we have here is a album full of some the best pomp-AOR that has released in quite some time.