Pictorial Wand is a symphonic progrock project from Norway. It was started in 2003 by Mattis Sörum, and it has taken him three years to complete his debut-album A Sleeper´s Awakening(double-cd). It is a one-man-project where all the musicians are hired in especially for this album, except the guitars, the synthesizers and the organ which is played by Mattis himself.
Description of the Album
The music is grand and complex in the instrumentation, and strong melodies plays an important role in the compositions. Many of the songs are pretty long and there are many compositional relationships to bind it all together.
The voice of the main character is male, but the vocals are decorated all the way through by three different female-voices. The music goes from very heavy passages to lyrical acoustic themes, and contains a lot of symphonic instruments and analogue synths. With the symphonic orchestra and the analogue synths already mentioned we hear solistic melodies of the flute, cello, oboe and the violin.
A Sleeper´s Awakening is a concept-album.
The story is basically about a person(any person) who wakes up after a long, deep look in the mirror and finally becomes aware of his mistakes and the bad and selfish way he has lived his life. This theme is set in connection with the Seven Deadly Sins and put in a pretty abstract environment. He starts on a journey in his dreams(or his head) to make up for the mistakes he has done. Along the way we also hear a little boy reading his moralistic stories, which are a reflection of the main character´s childhood and his very severe education from his mother. In the end he wakes up, and the main character starts laughing with relief, but soon realizes that the dream was real enough.
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