Hällas sound like a band fully aware of their power and unafraid to test it on Panorama, pushing ever outwards into the rock and roll cosmos with an endless sense of curiosity.
Hällas have always treated rock music like a portal to alternate worlds. With Panorama, the Swedish adventure rock collective step through it again, emerging with what could be their most ambitious and immersive album to date. It’s a album that doesn’t just expand the band’s own universe, it challenges us to widen our own field of musical vision as well.
True to form, Panorama unfolds in a fictional, distant world, a hallmark of the Hällas aesthetic. But beneath the cosmic landscapes and mythic imagery lies something of the moment. The album wrestles with humanity’s capacity to understand perspectives beyond its own, a theme that feels somewhat radical in a time defined by hardened viewpoints and shrinking attention spans. Hällas aren’t forcing any answers on us though, just asking us to lean into complexity of it all rather than recoil from it.
Musically, Panorama both consolidates and stretches the band’s sound. Fans of their cult-favorite blend of progressive '70s rock and hard rock will recognize the DNA immediately. There are familiar echoes of heavy metal, folk mysticism, and psychedelic experimenting, but this time it all feels broader, the stakes somehow higher. Symphonic brass and strings flow through the songs, adding unexpected but welcome layers.
The album opens with the sprawling 22-plus-minute epic statement “Above The Continuum.” Wasting no time to declare a belief in humanity’s willingness to dive deeper, to embrace intricacy, and to find meaning in the unfamiliar. The track’s length isn’t indulgence. It’s simply asking the listener to slow down, to surrender to the journey, and to trust where it leads. As the album unfolds, influences collide and occasionally clash, but those moments of friction are part of the magic. Just when a song seems to settle into something expected, it mutates, opening into something stranger and more wondrous. In an time engulfed in instant gratification, Panorama feels an act of defiance. It asks for time, attention, and openness. Give it those, and Hällas reward you with a world worth getting lost in.