Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***/**
Horizont followed a similar path as
Nebulosa, insofar they played more or less symphonic rock before
their lead singers went on to being stars in their own right. Nebulosa had
Roger Pontare, née Johansson, and Horizont had Tommy Nilsson who
embarked on a very successful solo career including a couple of
appearances in the Eurovision Song Contest (like Johansson/Pontare).
Horizont made two full length album,
both issued by CBS in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Their eponmymous
debut is in a radio friendly and simplified symphonic vein with
cheesy synths and uninspired guitar work. Nilsson's vocals are habile
but dull, just like the music overall. Some have spotted a Kaipa
touch to the album and I guess you could agree to that.
Their second album ”Andra vyer” is
even worse than their first, 'enhancing' their sound with elements
from both disco and mainstream hard rock. I couldn't find anything
worthwhile here even with a gun pointing to one side of my head and
somebody beating me with a garden gnome on the other. I couldn't even
recommend these albums to a die-hard symph completist for academical
purposes. Horizont were absolutely terrible and their albums are uniformly horrendous.
Nah second album is way better. Its here we ger the first signs of the unique timbre of Nilssons voice as it would be known later on. This album is a hidden gem in hardprog and AOR. Every track has interesting melodic twists or motifs. Standouts for me are ”Andra vyer” (totally epic) the disco-rock smash ”förlorar igen” and the NWOSHM preview ”fredlös”.
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