Alonzo Fas 3 Album Review

Alonzo Fas 3
Alonzo Fas 3

(Spotify, CD, Vinyl)
This review is made from listening to the CD.

Michael ”Micke” Alonzo was one of the singers in one of the original Swedish 1978 punk band KSMB, a band that reached a whole generation of Swedish youngsters and gained some mainstream success as well. At the height of their success Micke Alonzo annoused that he would quit to become a “Pizzabagare” (work in a pizza restauran.) I never got the nerve to ask him about the truth in it. A few years later he was back in Stockholms Negrer and got the neo nazi movments enemy #1.
And when they quit he been into politics, advertising, doing Tv and been writing books as well as he owns a law firm. But I could tell he was really tempted to be back on stage singing. After a failed attempt to reform KSMB he got together with a bunch of guys from bands like Hellacopters, Refused and Nomads etc. A Swedish punk supergroup you might say. Fas 3 as they named them self. It has a double meaning, both it´s is Alonzos third phase (fas) in music as well it is a very unpopular unemployment program launched by the Fredrik Reinfeldts right wing/liberal government.

I followed the band during a series of live concerts during last year. And the crowd was really there for the old KSMB and Stockholms Negrer tunes. In between the band sneaked in some new Fas 3 tunes. I can admit that sometimes I hit the bar or went to the bathroom during some of them. As well I wasn´t too impressed with the singles during 2012.

I have gotten some inside info on the record in advance during the process and it all claimed this was going to be a great record. And so...Now it´s here!

In the first track “Det bästa som har hänt” (The best ever happened) they speed up the Sympathy for the Devil verse chords in double speed and go for a knock out. The song is about all of us punks that in the seventies did our thing against all odds. And it grasps my heart and my spine in a way a record do when it is something extra. Wow, they got their low-fi sound right on the record that never really worked in the shadows of the KSMB song live.

after the up tempo opening they go on with “Ett meningsfullt liv” (A meaningsful life) and it is from my POW the perfect song as the second song.

3rd track” Matilda”, a mainstream down tempo pop song that could been on a recent Bruce Springsteen album or something. The single left me stone cold. On the album after the two faster tracks it fits perfect. Here it is in its right element and I find myself humming it ever now and then.
And now I listen on the lyrics and it´s dark undertones.

Ismer is a track where Alonzo  is giving the boot at all –isms that he is really fed up with. Feminism, Liberalism, Communism, Nazism and whatever ism there is. Here his son Ali* helps out in the chorus. OMG, it´s not a long time ago my kids did play with toy pirates with him. Well times fly.

Then the record moves on in a perfected balanced way to be a record that is close to a masterpiece. Alonzo Fas 3 has nothing to be ashamed off and with this record the band takes a step out of the KSMB shadows to shine on their own. Infact it is a candidate to be crowned the best record this year by 1,2 FYPR.

 The slow “Varför skulle jag bry mig” (Why should I care) is one of the real highlight on this as well as the ballad “Inte ett ord till” (not another word). “När du inte är med” (when you´re not around) reminds me of a punkish the Doors etc. The closing cocktail jazz number “lyxbegravning” (Luxury burial) performed as a drunken after party jam closes a perfect circle of songs that shows that the album format is still working like it used to do, even in a time of clicks and internet restlessness. In fact this album is important to define the greatness with Alonzo Fas 3 and confirm their existence.

Overall, this record have all the balls, bollocks and mojo as well as honesty and strong melodies played by the super group Fas 3 to become one of the soundtracks this summer. And I´m not shure that I have discovered everything there is to discover on this record???


Worth buying? Hurry it´s already a classic record, not least because Petrus Vavami  / Micke Alonzos stylish and clean record cover.


* Michael Alonzo have written about the struggle to have the right to be the father of his son Ali in the book “Ge aldrig upp”.