Spotlights on: SALANDER

 A few months ago I wasn't even aware that there is a band named 'Salander'. But since then many things happened, and here I am now writing a second post in my blog about them. But let's take it from the start:
  During summer, Dave Smith (one of the two members) contacted me saying that he wanted to send me their 2 albums in order to write here a review, and maybe play a song or more, in the radio show Prog & Roll. I accepted of course, because I really like to learn about new bands, and further than that because I liked the way he approached me. He was very 'gentleman'.
 He sent me their albums, which I didn't have time to listen for some time, because it was August and I was on holidays, but upon my return I decided to give them a try. Sometime ago I wrote a small review for their second album 'Stendec', which you can read here if you want: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2014/10/salander-stendec-2014.html
 Now let's take a look at the band:
Salander consists of two members: Dave Curnow and Dave Smith. They have a rather different musical background, as Dave Curnow was more into Rock and Blues, while Dave Smith was mostly a fan of the Progressive Rock bands of the '70's. Somehow these differences in their musical preferences effected their sound (in a good way), giving a rather unique style to their music.The 2 musicians are work colleagues and friends, so they decided to collaborate in order to write some music for Curnow's big selection of poems and stories.
  They started playing music together in 2013, and were recording their songs in Dave Smith's home studio. Slowly slowly they had a nice collection of songs, and decided to make an album. Their first effort was 'Crash course for dessert' which was kind of a concept album. After the album was recorded they decided to release it in Bandcamp for free, in order to see what will happen. They took some possitive feedback at start, followed by positive reviews from  music sites.
  Encouraged by all that, they decided to continue writing music, and the result was 'Stendec' a few months later. Stendec is a more "mature" album and surely a more "Progressive" one. It contains longer and more complexed compositions, and it is my favorite among their two albums. It also includes maybe their finest synthetic moment, the song 'Zeitgeist'. Here I should mention that there is a 3rd album, which was recorded after 'Crash course', which includes 9 songs that were not included in the first album. The title is 'Don't worry I'm not going to hurt you'.
 So, in a nutshell, if you are interested to find out about Salander's music, I would recommend to start with 'Stendec', and if you like their style and sound continue with the other two.
 In order to get an idea, I'm adding here the video of 'Zeitgeirst'.
I hope you found this post interesting and informative.
Thank you for reading...