Onségen Ensemble: A Tale

I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again: The amount of good-to-excellent music coming from Scandinavia is almost hard to believe. This is just another example.

I received the advance audio files and promo materials for this album many months ago. But I waited until the last three weeks or so to give it the attention it deserves given that its release date was in late June. Although this Finnish outfit calls itself an ensemble, the main members seem pretty steady, at least recently.

What an album! It throws just about everything at a prog fan who doesn’t define the genre as purely symphonic might like. The number of instruments used, well, I don’t really know. But they are all employed to excellent effect, especially ones considered more eclectic, including the violin and flute. But, at almost every (unexpected) turn, the album reminds us of some of the grandaddies of the genre, including Pink Floyd and King Crimson, especially during the very early 1970s, as they experimented with all manner of sounds. You could include Gentle Giant as well, though there are no, or at least few, harmony vocals. Indeed, the vocals tend to be sparse at times, but well used, both male and female.

The only song on this one that is sometimes a skip for me, and I’ve really tried to like it, is “Oldest Father.� It’s certainly not bad in absolute terms; just only relative to the rest of the album.

Give it a go, fans of adventurous music. I’m confident it will be on my top 25 list of 2026 at the end of the year.

Track Listing
1. Garden of Celestials (6:19)
2. To Be Led by the Lost (7:09)
3. A Thought (5:46)
4. The Word (5:11)
5. Oldest Father (4:49)
6. The First Casualty (4:25)
7. Crystal Waters of Spring (8:32

Added: July 9th 2026
Reviewer: Aaron Steelman
Score:
Related Link: Onségen Ensemble online
Hits: 36
Language: english

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