PROFILE - The eclectic Progressive Prog by Seven Impale

Seven Impale is a Norwegian band founded in 2009 by Stian Økland. A year later, its definitive lineup consisted of six musicians with backgrounds in jazz and classical music. Their sound draws influences from Van Der Graaf Generator and King Crimson, and is a splendid blend of jazz rock fusion with the traditions of electric prog and, at times, heavy prog. Their work has reached peaks of complexity, sometimes criticized by critics.

They have released three great albums to date:

City of the Sun (2014), a wonderful, eclectic debut album, at times dark and heavy and at times aggressive, but also featuring moments of soft jazz and many melodic themes, explosions, jazz improvisations, and some passages bordering on avant-garde, with occasionally beautiful distorted bass. A sophisticated album that combines great jazz rock, progressive rock, and a touch of progressive metal with a beautiful groove.

Contrapasso (2016), an excellent, eclectic, and intense progressive rock album, blends jazz-rock, avant-prog, and psychedelic influences, as is typical of this band, with great complexity in its often sudden tempo changes and atmospheres ranging from captivating to very dark. This is their most complex and least understood album.

Summit (2023), their most recent album, features four extended tracks totaling about 44 minutes, with a powerful sound and excellent vocals, an improvement over their previous album, where they were already more intense. The keyboards are superb. This is a great album, their pinnacle.

A great band that upholds the name of progressive rock worldwide, characterized by an overall sound that owes its quality to excellent musicians, with a versatile and multifaceted approach to composition and performance, demonstrating great skill in various styles. Not following a single style or movement, however, but harmonizing knowledge and approaches drawn from disparate influences, they combine this with the ability to experiment, to evolve album after album, drawing on the best of previous works to create new ideas and forms of expression, integrating them in an original yet coherent way with the general trend of change and improvement. A band born in the talent hotbed of Scandinavia, embracing the tradition of international prog with great skill and creativity to create its own unique and recognizable style.

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A band that deserves to be heard on large stages.

LineUp:

Håkon Vinje – keyboards
Stian Økland – vocals, guitar
Fredrik Mekki Widerøe – drums
Erlend Vottvik Olsen – guitar
Tormod Fosso – Cello bass
Benjamin Mekki Widerøe – saxophone