Band:	Freak Kitchen
Album:	Appetizer
Style:	Melodic hard rock, Progressive hard rock
Release date:	1994
A review by:	Jeff

01. Blind
02. Appetizer
03. Lie Freedom
04. Hollow
05. See You In Pittsburgh
06. Paperdance
07. Raw
08. Some Kind Of Love Song
09. Are You For Real?
10. The Healthy Man
11. What's The Problem
12. The New Part

And here we start with this review, the long story of one of the most original band ever in my opinion, Freak Kitchen. Imagine three dudes totally crazy born in Sweden who deicide to play a kind of melodic Hard Rock with however a really special funny and crazy touch in it. Of course the beginning of the band it's a lot more complex but well we are here to talk about music and about the first album of the band "Appetizer" then I just let you read the bio of the band and you could know all that you want about this excellent combo from Sweden.

"Appetizer" was released in 1994 and recorded in 1993 and this is certainly the real problem of this album for us the listeners of the 21-century, it's a bit old now. But of course there is already a lot of great stuffs in it. And the first one is certainly the guitarist and singer Mattias "IA" Eklundh. First, he is a great singer really, with a real voice of rocker a bit tortured but very nice and perfect for this kind of music, and Mattias is also a great guitarist maybe even one of the best of his generation, and we can already feel that in this album. In fact for the ones who don't know him, he is able to do a ton of little sounds very funny but also very technical with his guitar and well it's a special touch really [and I don't talk here about the great solos and excellent guitar riffs], the Freak Kitchen touch?
The two other guys of the bands Joakim for the drums and Christian for the bass are also perfect and Christian even does some chorus [before that he really sing some songs for the band but that, we will see it later ] on this album too.
The particularity of the music of the band is this ability to create riffs more than catchy. It's hard to find something better if you want to sing or jump like an idiot everywhere in your house. In "Appetizer" you could find great powerful songs like "Blind" or also ballades like "Hollow" ? well all the tracks are good in fact . But well it' sound a bit old, and well it's easy to say that now, but when you know the future of Freak Kitchen well this ones s don't sound really mature. Musically, we can feel that it will become something really good, but it's not perfect. It's just a first album, a beginning, but don't worry it's a damn great beginning.
The other great particularity of Freak Kitchen is in the lyrics of each album. You could find extremely funny lyrics every time but also very serious against racism and all the forms of stupidity that you can find on Earth.
"Appetizer" is good but the problem comes of the production which is not really good. Oki this is not crappy but not good too, it really sound too much the recording of the beginning of the 90'but well if you like this kind of music and if you like Freak Kitchen no doubts that you'll like this album.

With "Appetizer" the band of IA did a really good start, and showed us in early 94 that something great could come with this 3 dudes from Sweden. "Appetizer" is not perfect yes, but really it's however a must have for the fans of melodic Hard Rock. I suggest you to have a look on this first album which deserve it at least for some excellent songs.