Album review: Mats Karlsson “The Time Optimist”
220 Volt guitarist Mats Karlsson shows us a different side on his first-ever solo album.
Swedish musician and songwriter Mats Karlsson is best known as a founding member of the hard rock band 220 Volt. Forty years since being founded the band is still active but somehow Mats has found time to write and record a solo album. He has always been a great songwriter and guitarist, but here we get to hear a somewhat different side of the musician Mats Karlsson. His 220 Volt heritage shines through in some of the music, for example on the straightforward rock song “Function over Fashion”. But “The Time Optimist”, Mats’ first-ever solo album, is a rather varied album. Mainly it is focused around grown-up, mature rock music. Some of it lives in AOR territory, some in a singer-songwriter valley and some of this music moves around in blues-rock land. “Megalo Seitani” offers us some reggae-infused pop-rock in a relaxed beach holiday mood (yes, it has a bit of 10cc‘s “Dreadlock Holiday” about it) while “Natural High” is a catchy rock song and “Stop the World” features some fine guitar work. The tracks “October 28th” and “Heather” partly make me think of what we heard on Hellsingland Underground’s most recent album. “Real Gone” is music for an enjoyable car ride while “DayDreamer” is Tom Petty-esque. The whole album has a laidback kind of feeling. But this is not lazy music, just a great record created by someone skilled at making things sound effortless. I dig it.
Mats Karlsson’s solo album “The Time Optimist” will be released on 6th December.
