Moon Safari Returns Triumphantly with First Album in a Decade

Himlabacken Vol. 2 was worth the 10-year wait.

Thank you for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. This week, I’m discussing a band that hasn’t put out a new album in a decade. Sweden’s Moon Safari burst onto the progressive rock scene in the early 2000s with a unique brand of prog that focused on melodic hooks and brilliant five-part harmonies. It was like the Beach Boys, Beatles, and Crosby, Stills & Nash all joined forces and sang over inventive keyboard- and guitar-based music with time signature changes and lengthy musical passages.

I recently caught up with vocalist/guitarist Petter Sandstrom to discuss the new album.

Let’s get to that story.

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It’s been 10 years since the Swedish progressive rock band Moon Safari released its last album, Himlabacken Vol. 1, the fourth standout release by the band, which is known for its infectious melodic hooks, soaring five-part harmonies, and compellingly inventive brand of prog. The band has been on a bit of a hiatus since that excellent album dropped, but the six-piece outfit out of Skellefteå, Sweden are back, having dropped Himlabacken Vol. 2 yesterday on the group’s own Blomljud Records. A decade or not, it was worth the wait.

“Blame it on kids and the pandemic,” vocalist/guitarist Petter Sandström said of the gap between albums. “It took us a long time — too long of a time. Kids are partly to blame, and everyone in the band is working. I think we recorded the drums in 2019. The drums and the bass — the foundation — were there in 2019, but then the pandemic hit. I couldn’t travel to Skellefteå, where the other guys live, and so it was a lot of back and forth…Messenger and Facebook, trying to sort out this post-production hell we were in. So the post-production for this album took a long time, and that's usually the part of recording an album that I most enjoy. You know, decorating the Christmas tree.”

With so much time to work on the album and get it dialed in just right, the band has never seemed tighter, and the song craft involved is stunning. The usual brilliant harmonies and melodies aside, this is Moon Safari’s best guitar album in my view, with Pontus Åkesson reaching new heights of brilliance throughout the new record.

There has only been one lineup change in the intervening decade between Himlabacken Volumes 1 and 2. It was a significant one, and one that has slightly altered the band’s sound. Drummer Tobias Lundgren stepped away and has been replaced by Mikael Israelsson, who brings a little heavier hitting to the skins — particularly the kick drum — on the band’s new release. The current lineup consists of:

• Petter Sandström – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica (2003–present)

• Simon Åkesson – lead vocals, lead keyboards (2003–present)

• Johan Westerlund – bass, backing vocals (2003–present)

• Pontus Åkesson – guitars, lead and backing vocals (2005–present)

• Sebastian Åkesson – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (2008–present)

• Mikael Israelsson – drums, percussion, backing vocals (2015–present)

Additionally, the new album features a special guest performance by Jamison Smeltz on saxophone on the song “Forever, For You.”

The band wrote, arranged, and produced the album, with mixing and mastering by the legendary Rich Mouser, who is known for his work with Spock’s Beard, Transatlantic, Neal Morse, and Flying Colors. The record was recorded at Kulturföreningen Mullberget in Skellefteå, Sweden, with the mixing and mastering done at the Mouse House Studio in Los Angeles. While the previous Moon Safari albums have been mostly great sonically, Himlabacken Vol. 2 takes things up a notch in terms of clarity and sound quality.

“It’s a great mix and master by Rich,” Sandström said. “We sent out a couple of test songs to a couple names and Rich was the best by far. I think he has had a lot of patience with us because we are so picky.”

The band announces its triumphant return on the opening track, “198X (Heaven Hill),” which is appropriately named because Himlabacken roughly translates to Heaven Hill. The song picks up where closing track “Sugar Band” from Himlabacken Vol. 1 left off.

“If you play Volume 1 and Volume 2 right after, they see into each other in the right key,” Sandström said. “So, that was always the plan. We wanted a kind of rocking opener, like ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’”

Welcome back to Heaven Hill
Same old sound, same old thrill

Moon Safari is literally proclaiming to their listeners that they are back, and it’s a triumphant return. Pontus Åkesson’s guitar work immediately grabs the listener as this song unfolds and is an impressive part of the band’s sound.

“He’s just getting better and better,” Sandström said of Pontus’ guitar work. “He plays guitar in an AOR band and I think that it’s elevated his playing.”

“Between the Devil and Me” is one of Moon Safari’s heaviest songs, putting the ‘rock’ in progressive rock. It’s the first single from the album, despite a run time of 10:38, and the band has released a lyric video for it. It’s a cross between prog and melodic album-oriented rock, with Israelsson going heavy with what sounds like kick drum fills. I’d long suspected adding a little more crunch to Moon Safari’s music would yield outstanding results, and that is the case in parts of this song.

The shorter, fun “Emma, Come On” follows, showing off the band’s vocal chops once again as a brief palate cleanser between the previous epic and “A Lifetime to Learn How to Love,” which is an early contender for my favorite song on the album. The song starts as a gorgeous ballad, with Pontus channeling a little inner Steve Howe, and it builds to a huge, climactic, symphonic ending.

“Pontus wrote this track and I helped him,” Sandström said. “I wrote the lyrics and I helped him a bit with the vocal melodies. Normally, when I write lyrics, I know what the vocal melody is, and so I was like, ‘I’m going to sing a track for you. You can keep it if you want to,’ and I think he kept a big chunk of it. It’s like his follow-up to ‘My Little Man’ (from Himlabacken Vol. 1), but this one was for his little girl. She’s 20 now (laughs). No, not really, but like almost 10, I guess. He built a big crescendo with an amazing guitar solo, I think. And Mikael I think did the string arrangements.”

The end of “A Lifetime to Learn How to Love” is one of the album’s highest points for me, and shows the band at the height of its power. The lyrics are poignant and powerful and are sung with a high level of intensity and emotion.

“Beyond the Blue” is the album’s shortest song at 2:12, and it sounds like a church hymn, with bells tolling. It starts with a single lead vocal and additional voices add texture as it rolls along.

“That’s Johan’s track and I don’t know what the background is but he always just comes up with these vocal tracks like ‘Constant Bloom’ (from 2008’s Blomljud’) I think started with him and ‘Kids’ (from Himlabacken Vol. 1) as well,” Sandström said. “I think it was a capella at first but we added a couple of sprinkles on that.”

The end of the song leads directly into the start of “Blood Moon,” a quirky song with an unusual time signature, a fun recurring riff, and an exquisite guitar solo. It may be my favorite bass song on the album, with Westerlund playing masterfully throughout.

The epic centerpiece of Himlabacken Vol. 2 is the 21-minute “Teen Angel Meets the Apocalypse,” a song that Sandström said was written in a weekend. It’s one of the first songs the band worked on for the record, dating back to about 2014. As with any epic, it goes through many musical twists and turns. The run time seems longer than the listening experience, with changing tempos, alternating lead vocals, standout musicianship, an infectious chorus, and lyrics that contain several Easter eggs. It stands among the band’s best long tracks, which is quite a statement when Moon Safari’s entire catalog is considered. Most bands don’t come up with one song of this magnitude in their entire careers, but Moon Safari puts at least one of them out on every album.

“Forever, For You” is another epic, but only a 10-minute one. It starts with a sublime acoustic guitar duet, picking up a piano bit after a few bars in the first minute before other instruments and vocals join in, adding texture and depth as the track unwinds. It features some of the album’s best vocal work and a killer recurring lyric:

The only thing that lasts forever is the love that we leave when we are gone.

The track features Smeltz’s saxophone solo, some fantastic keyboard work by Simon Åkesson, and more guitar heroics from Pontus.

The record closes with the short (and appropriately named) “Epilog,” which is the only song sung in Swedish. It’s another hymn-like song with organ, piano, and beautiful vocal harmonies. I have no idea what they’re singing about, but it’s a fitting close to an incredible album, as it allows the listener a few moments of quiet contemplative music to decompress from the magnificent soaring heights of all that’s come before.

Himlabacken Vol. 2 is a spectacular achievement for Moon Safari, and may turn out to be their best album to date. That’s high praise, because I find previous albums like Blomljud and Lover’s End (2010) absolutely stunning in terms of their scope and grandeur. As we’re in mid-December, it’s safe to say this record ranks among my favorite albums of 2023.

This album should appeal to anyone who loves melodic rock that’s a little bit adventurous but heavily tied to melody and harmony, whether you’re into progressive rock or not. The band employs multiple lead singers and varies vocal harmonies between two, three, and five singers, keeping the sound fresh from track to track. Don’t be afraid of the longer songs, as they fly by much faster than their run time suggests.

Speaking of time flying, let’s hope it’s not another decade between Moon Safari albums.

Tracklist:

1. 198X (Heaven Hill) (3:55)

2. Between the Devil and Me (10:38)

3. Emma, Come On (3:19)

4. A Lifetime to Learn How to Love (8:28)

5. Beyond the Blue (2:12)

6. Blood Moon (5:44)

7. Teen Angel Meets the Apocalypse (21:03)

8. Forever, For You (10:08)

9. Epilog (3:22)

For more information on Moon Safari, check out the band’s website at www.moonsafari.se.

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For my complete interview with vocalist/guitarist Petter Sandstrom of Moon Safari, check out the video below or download/stream Episode 128 of the Michael’s Record Collection podcast. In addition to discussing the making of the new album and the long layoff since the band’s last release, Petter discussed his musical background, how Moon Safari was formed, the story behind how the band recorded its first demo tracks, and more.

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