All Traps On Earth
A Drop Of Light

Release Date: 2018 | Tracklist

“A Drop Of Light” is the debut and only studio album of the Swedish prog band All Traps On Earth and was released in 2018. The line up on the album is Miranda Brand, Johan Brand, Thomas Johnson and Erik Hammarstrom. The album has also the participation of Phil Mercy, Fredrik Lindborg, Karl Olandersson, Magnus Bage and Matthias Baath.

One of the best things about this great big wide genre of music, usually known as progressive music, is that there are nearly as many sub-genres as there are listeners. It’s not like in rock or metal, in general, where the differences are very insignificant. Rather, most of the progressive music fans take this stuff seriously enough that a sub-genre is usually not created without a good reason. And this genre has many sub-genres spread all over the world since the end of the 60’s.

Sweden has been the home of some of the best prog bands in the several sub-genres through the late 20th Century, like Kaipa, The Flower Kings, Anglagard, Anekdoten, Opeth, Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish, only to mention a few and the most known. However, lurking within the forests of the genre is something completely unexpected. Somewhere, lurking in the dank of a prog forest is a Swedish band called Anglagard. Anglagard has a strange story. While the band was extremely active and ambitious in the 90’s, having released two studio albums “Hybris” in 1992 and “Epilog” in 1994 and also a live album “Buried Alive” in 1996, they lay dormant for nearly two decades, until that finally they emerged from where they hibernated so long, to release their 2012 album, and most recent until now, “Viljans Oga”. They are quite possibly the modern masters of a sound inhabited by those bold enough to tread where few others dare.

In 2013 was founded another Swedish prog band named All Traps On Earth. All Traps On Earth is the new band of Anglagard’s bassist Johan Brand, who is basically a kind of Anglagard Mk. II. Along with Brand, one of the strongest personalities among those bold adventurers, we have Thomas Johnson and Erik Hammarstrom, two other Anglagard’s members, and Brand’s daughter, Miranda. In addition we have trumpeters, flutists, saxophonists and horn players.

Despite the differences between Anglagard and All Traps On Earth, there is still a portion of Anglagard on it. In addition to powerful Mellotron cascades, clear King Crimson’s reminiscences from their early phase, some moderate Magma impact, and a clear horror soundtrack touch in the style of the Italian Goblin, we have the dark and bulky music with reserved vocals. It has the tonal wand compositional magic that takes a welcome journey through time to the prog of the 70’s. This is how you can recognize the role models, but the material from All Traps On Earth breathes musical, quite imaginative free spirit, melancholy, sadness and the retro power and jazz-rock character in its own and very vital corset.

“A Drop Of Light” features Miranda’s operatic voice, which along with keyboards, creates an escalating and foreboding picture. Everything breaks loose in a chaotic free-style, with an intensity which conflates King Crimson’s “Lizard” era, the RIO movement. It has has intensive time signatures creating a big tension and power. On “Magmatic Warning” Brand employs distorted bass to add power before piano walks into another gruesome scene. Trumpet, nightmarish synths, growling fuzz tone bass, and giant swell-like drums offer a suitable climax. Miranda’s voice brings tranquillity, although there’s no peace here. “Omen” has retro-prog, jazz-rock, bombastic, orchestral and experimental references to “Starless And Bible Black” era. Wild loud quiet passages changes with careful metal outbursts and quickly brought back to melodic, by some flute tones and classical piano passages, aria and movement chants. “First Step” is an atonal composition introduced with piano and where flute and Mellotron emerge, providing a nice counterpoint to all the epic bombast. Sometimes, it also reminds me King Crimson, “Peace” of “In The Wake Of Poseidon”. “Bortglomda Gardar” ends the album with great clear vocals in Swedish. This is another additional timbre that ultimately not only leaves the progressive enthusiast, as promised on the album title, a sonorous drop of light, but flooded with the brightest rays of sunshine of progressive music passion and mastery. This is a nice conclusion to a fascinating and captivating album.


Conclusion: Any fan of Anglagard needs to buy this album. It’s not exactly the same thing, but it will scratch the itch left by the six years between “A Drop Of Light” and when “Viljans Oga” was released. Thematically “A Drop Of Light” falls somewhere between Anglagard’s first two albums, though it’s not far removed from their latest either. “A Drop Of Light” is an absorbing, dark voyage, filled with disturbing twists and chilling dynamics. Not for the faint of heart, however this is an incredible journey that you will be compelled to take. This is a unique album full of dark, dense and complex music but, it’s also an album with nice melodies and angelic vocals. If you like a blend of symphonic prog rock, like Anglagard, King Crimson, a variety of styles and a wide range of instruments, this is an album for you, surely.


Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)

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