After the Symphonic debacle of the late 70's and a bit more than a decade of a different approach to Progressive Rock called Neo Prog, Symphonic movement started to resurrect but this time not in UK or in the most faithful country to the classical sound as Italy, it was in Scandinavia and more specifically in the cold Sweden. Bands like Änglagård and The Flower Kings re-created the original spirit of the early 70's with great perfection and extreme care but people rarely mention Pär Lindh Project, not only one of the main re-creators of the early style but a band that went back in history for the search of their roots, most precisely to the late Gothic Religious music of the XII and XIV Centuries with his dark haunting organ solos without forgetting the sober influence of the Baroque period.
The Tolkien-inspired "Dreamsongs from Middle Earth" is the second product of the creative collaboration between the well-known Swedish musicians and composers Pär Lindh and Björn Johansson, both of whom are multi-instrumentalists. Their first joint musical experience took place in 1996 and was marked with the release of the (still, Tolkien-inspired) album "Bilbo". "Dreamsongs from Middle Earth" is an amazingly coherent recording, which, above all, is due to the fact that all the contents conform to a unified, nearly monolithic, compositional and stylistic conception. (Well, there are only wordless, separate and chorus, female vocals, so the album can be considered only a semi-concept work). There are no pauses between the tracks here, and each of the following ones provides the logical development of the music on its predecessor…