Instrumental
International relevance: ***
Classically trained Anders Helmerson
once said that ”End of Illusion” was known to music business
insiders as ”the most expensive Swedish record production after
ABBA”. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a good thing or a bad
thing, but there's no denying it has plenty of production sheen,
supposedly necessary to an album of this nature.
Helmerson was an early member of Kung Tung, but ”End of Illusion” bears no similarities with the
satirical balls-to-the-wall rock of his previous band. It's a full
scale symphonic work, and Helmerson is proud to demonstrate his Keith
Emerson/Rick Wakeman pretentions. I could stop there – symph fans
might drool over it (although that too is doubtful, judging by the Prog Archives reviews); me, I just get exhausted by the vulgar pyrotechnics.
Especially since the compositions lack substance and dynamics, merely
being thick layers of late 70's/early 80's keyboard textures. It's
actually hard to believe the number of musicians involved here, as
most of them are obscured by Helmerson's ego, ego, ego, ego, ego,
keyboards, keyboards, keyboards, keyboards and keyboards. Did I
mention ego and keyboards? As if that wasn't enough, he even got Egba
trumpeter Ulf Adåker to play synthesizer!
It took Helmerson almost three years –
from 1979 to 1981 – to finish off the album, largely due to
financial shortcomings. He could have saved some money on studio time
wasted on ten billions of extra keyboard overdubs. Ironically, ”End
of Illusion” initially proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as
the self-released album failed to make much of an impact, prompting
Helmerson to leave for Canada, then Brazil, and a more successful career, leaving behind one of the
worst examples of self-indulgent and preposterous symphonic
rock ever.
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