Two names, but basically the same band. Beginning as Treklöver, they recorded a demo for EMI in 1972 which lead nowhere. After recruiting singer Eddy Kristiansen, they changed their name to Infra, taped a 1974 demo for UK label RSO which faced the same fate as their first, leaving two studio sessions left unheard by the public for four decades.
The Infra demo takes up the major part of the album with seriously progressive rock with symphonic aspirations, which for the sake of clarity means plenty of neurotic time signature changes. They indeed aim high, and although they're accomplished musicians, there are split seconds where especially drummer Jörgen Nordgren slips. OK, so it's a demo, but the clean and conspicuously modern-sounding production is too revealing at crucial moments. Eddy Kristiansen in turn is way too operatic and pretentious, but it gets even worse when he tries to 'rawk out' in the busy bordering-on-hysterical ”Keep On Truckin'” in which he gets absolutely unbearable.
All in all, it's everything I absolutely hate with progressive rock.
Not that the Kristiansen-less
two-song Treklöver tape is much better. The production gels a bit better here, and while hired-gun vocalist and organ player Ann-Marie
”Ami” Henning's voice is a bit weak, it's still way more pleasant
to listen to than Kristiansen's self-important bombast. But already
in the band's early stage, they suffered from time signature
Tourettes and it takes me a fair amount of death defiance to get
through eight minutes of ”Saturn” (one of their two tracks here).
”Infra/Treklöver” will probably
give folks who enjoy playing their Trettioåriga Kriget albums at 45
rpm a boner, but my self-mutilation session with this nonsense is
forever over.
Full album playlist (Bandcamp)
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