Änglagård is a Swedish band founded in 1991 by Tord Lindman and Johan Brand. Their music focuses on symphonic, completely instrumental rock, with the splendid influences of Scandinavian dark and melancholy. Their debut album, Hybris (1992), is a true masterpiece, now considered one of the essential albums of the genre. This was followed by a surprising album, Epilog (1994), which repeated the feat, but without quite reaching the same level of "surprise effect" as their debut. 1994 it is also the year of their beautiful concert at Progfest in Los Angeles, spawned the live album Buried Alive, after which the band disbanded, partly due to the departure of founder Tord Lindman.
This is the lineup for this first phase:
- Tord Lindman - acoustic-electric, nylon, and steel guitars, vocals
- Jonas Engdegård - acoustic-electric, nylon, and steel guitars
- Thomas Johnson - Mellotron, Hammond (B-3 & L-100), synthesizers (Solina, Korg), clavinet, pianet, piano, electronic church organ
- Anna Holmgren - flute
- Johan Högberg - bass, pedalboard, Mellotron (effects)
- Mattias Olsson - drums, concert bass drum, tambourine, vibraslap, po-chung, gong, glockenspiel, tubular bells, bongos, Tibetan cymbals, wind chimes, a-gogo, cabasa, African drums, effect flute, bells, and various percussion instruments
The All Traps On Earth project is beautiful and is basically a spin-off of this great band.
The band reunited in 2002 and finally in 2009 for the long gestation of a new album, their third and final studio album, Viljans öga, another essential masterpiece of progressive rock.
This is the Viljans öga Lineup
- Jonas Engdegård - guitars
- Thomas Johnson - pianos, Mellotron, synthesizers
- Anna Holmgren - concert flute, tenor saxophone
- Johan Brand - bass, Taurus bass pedalboard
- Mattias Olsson - drums, percussion, effects
Their musical style is progressive, symphonic rock, with strong influences from '70s bands like King Crimson, Genesis, and Van der Graaf Generator. These influences are never explicitly mentioned, but thanks to the members' musical sensibilities and Nordic atmospheres, they remain subtle. This creates a completely personal and distinctive sound that, while not taking them into the world of neo-prog, allows them to remain firmly within the symphonic rock genre that seemed to have faded away in the '70s, has wonderfully returned thanks to them.
Their songs are dynamic, layered, and complex, combining soft and epic moments, with extensive use of instruments like the flute and mellotron, sometimes with folk accents. Anna Holmgren's flute plays a crucial role in defining their sound.
A band that, along with Anekdoten, influenced a large group of Scandinavian musicians, giving birth to a new genre, what I call Northern Prog. These include Wobbler, Jordsjo and more recently AVKRVST, great bands that are bringing the prog genre, particularly symphonic rock, to the forefront of the modern world.
Anglagard works
Hybris - 1992
Epilog - 1994
Buried Alive - 1996
Viljans Öga - 2012
Prog På Svenska - Live In Japan - 2014
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Note: All links to the musicians' works are in the TAGS under the article title or on the "Artists" page
