Hällas – Isle Of Wisdom Review

[Artwork by Lena Richter & Maldo Illustration]

It must be strange to be a weird band facing curious obstacles in this bizarre world. Even stranger if you jump from the gate as an eccentric band playing prog, where fans have a penchant for the odd and absolutely encourage unusual experimentation from one album to the next. Please be weird, but not necessarily at the expense of tunefulness, and do so with the understanding that there really are no limits to be considered in the midst of your pursuit of adventuresome peculiarity.

Is Sweden’s Hällas actually a weird band, though? That largely depends on your vantage point, as is so often the case. They are deliciously retro, which is actually quite chic these days, no matter the genre, but there’s quite conceivably something pretty different if not outright squirrelly about their approach to retro progressive rock bordering on the faintly heavier. They’re probably more peculiar than they are outright strange, though, which is admittedly a bit pedantic, but we are nerds, hear us roar. Put it this way: Hällas play the sort of fantastical, fully costumed progressive hard rock that would have fit snuggly amongst the Grobschnitts, Museo Rosenbachs, T2’s et al. of the ‘70s, and they deliver it wrapped in an otherworldly narrative that, at least up until this point, dealt with “a knight in a parallel medieval universe destined to take part in a religious war caused by a tyrannical queen.” Not exactly straightforward, but also far from unimaginable for a genre that continues to embrace cod pieces and face paint with equal ferocity. Still, it certainly warrants mentioning that not a ton of bands in the modern age elect to dip into the party looking this peculiar:

Okay, so pleasantly peculiar it is, and also with a unique penchant for the dramatic. Here’s where things start to get tricky, though. Hällas didn’t spend very much time going from zero to “robed acolytes welcoming you to the planet Exo-III,” so it would stand to reason that album number three, Isle of Wisdom, might up the ante to a level where, I dunno, listening to the songs might literally Heaven’s Gate your ass directly into the passenger seat of a shuttle headed for Kepler-1649c. Interestingly enough, that would be a negatory, Ti and Do; Hällas has discovered a quirky groove, and they are sticking to their guns ( / two-handed void sabres.) That’s great news if you loved 2017’s Excerpts from a Future Past and 2020’s outstanding Conundrum and ain’t at all ready to give up that particular trajectory, but it’s something those who were hoping for a departure in 2022 will have to acclimate to pretty quickly when getting to know Isle of Wisdom.

Here’s the thing: Hällas is really good at this funky little world they’ve created, and it is, by Jehoshaphat’s beard, a sound quite exclusive to the band at this point. Tommy Alexandersson’s voice alone is a peculiarity that fits the mold here really well—a curious blend of braun and glam that’s fitting of a protagonist who’s likely caped, well-armed and rocks rocker bangs. And the soundtrack that trots alongside features an incredibly balanced array of clean guitars, buoyant bass, clever drumming, and loads of fearless synths / keys / organ, and it absolutely does feel equal parts futuristic and yanked from the set of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

“Earl’s Theme” is a good indicator of what Isle of Wisdom has in store. The song’s overall disposition is fairly joyous, as a very bouncy bass hustles up, down and around a stack of wonderfully melodic guitars right from the jump, but then some darker “Oooh, oooh, oooh’s” slip into the picture to throw a critical bit of shadow on the procession, which gives the mood a welcomed gravity. Keyboards become underscored just after the 2-minute mark, pealing off like mid-‘80s Europe and mingling graciously with yet another infectious Hällas refrain, and the song closes out with a very pleasant, warmhearted tone that feels…well, snuggly. Beyond “Earl’s Theme” and pivotal to the album as a whole, keyboardist Nicklas Malmqvist’s role is even more pronounced this time around—likely the single greatest shift between an already key-heavy Conundrum moving into Isle of Wisdom. Loads of hammond organ still give added texture to much of the backdrops, but there are more opportunities for jamming here, going so far as to give songs like “Gallivants (of Space)” a prominent “Styx at their most venturesome” feel that works quite well within the Hällas design.

Isle of Wisdom does a snazzy job of mixing up the pacing and complexity across its 40-plus minutes. Most of the fare offers up a wealth of knotty little twists & turns that certainly merit the ‘70s prog badge—the opening “Birth into Darkness,” for example, which launches with a dramatic Rush flare (including quick Peart fills) and shifts gears from a harder edge to a strange bit of medieval romping to a bit of foreboding spoken word before bleeding directly into “Advent of Dawn,” a song that flashes one of the record’s slickest leads after its 1-minute mark that’s promptly echoed by Mamqvist’s keys. Or the moodier “The Inner Chamber,” with its gentler opening stretch that spins threads of knightly Jethro Tull into the pattern before jumping into a more animated sprint following another notably fiery lead. This cut also happens to be punctuated with some of the album’s most aggressive riffing and drumming in its closing minute.

The more straightforward numbers are no less satisfying, though, supplanting extensive knottiness with a more direct approach that recalls melodic hard rockers such as Thin Lizzy or Slade—the heaviest and most blazing tune “Stygian Depths,” specifically, or the wonderfully infectious and soaring “Elusion’s Gate.”

All said and done, Isle of Wisdom delivers yet another wonderfully engaging, mythical adventure from a melodious crew of cavaliers who clearly still have a great deal of fun working together. Yes, the record is cut from a similar cloth as the band’s previous works, and sure, it might be nice to see them stretch their legs a bit more in the future—maybe a dip into some sort of “Cygnus X-1” approach that allows for more lengthy experimentation—but we’re definitely still at a point where Hällas sounding just like Hällas equates to a very good and intriguing thing. Hey, how about that! Turns out being peculiar right from the jump carries some very unique advantages.