Nathaniel607
Seven Days of Falling 10/10
Some jazz albums suffer from feeling like the pieces are just excuses to solo - that the piece was composed explicitly for that purpose. This albums does not suffer from that. Although there are plenty of solos - and they're great - the melodies, harmony and mood that the pieces create are absolutely amazing.
The piano playing on this album is majestic. Perfect. Esbjorn somehow manages to make melodies sound both dense and sparse. He uses the least amount of notes to show the most amount of beauty. This makes the solos even more impressive, where he speeds up significantly and creates rhythmically and melodically interesting solos - also harvesting a great use of dynamics to create extremely compelling passages!
All the pieces on here are excellent! There are quite a few mood changes, with pieces like "Ballad for the Unborn" and "Believe Beleft Below" showing a more mellow side and "Mingle in the Mincing-Machine" and "Elevation of Love" showing more frantic sides - especially the former.
There are more instruments that just piano, of course. Notable is the fact that there is significant guitar usage on the albums, presumably played also by Dan Berglund and also some violin which I have no idea who plays. All the playing is good. The drums are very competent and the album contains some fairly unusually drumming for jazz and some strange meters which I mentioned earlier. There are also some effects used on the drums like a constantly panning ride cymbal (I believe) on "In My Garage". Overall, the drums aren't very bombastic but certainly add an extra charm to this release. The bass, also, is interesting but not frivolous, though there are a couple of great solos.
Something strange I noticed in this is there seems to be somebody shouting along weirdly to the solos during some of the songs, like "In My Garage". It's in the background, and doesn't really add or take away from the album.
Of particular note is the bonus track "Love is Real" (I believe that's its name, though it may just be untitled) which is played after "O.D.R.I.P" (no idea what that stands for) and contains vocals, which I believe are preformed by Josh Haden. It's very nice and I believe the melody is the same as on "Believe Beleft Below".
In conclusion, this is an absolutely breathtaking album, which everyone should hear. Some may not love it due to it's relative simplicity but I find it hard to imagine anyone hating this album, due to it being both accessible but also massively involving.