In a seeming sea of modern musical acts without talent and originality it’s refreshing to find a band that not only has created a powerful album (yeah, remember when it was all about the album and not the single?) but also stretches into musical territory that’s not simple to categorize. Such is Barcelona. The group will be playing at The House Café in Dekalb on Saturday and that makes this a great time to look at their CD “Absolutes.”

Too often these days it seems like one of two scenarios happen. Either you hear one song from a CD and fall in love with it only to find that everything else on the disc is completely unrelated and of nowhere near the quality of that single.  On the other end of the spectrum, it’s not uncommon to buy a disc based because you like the single and then find that everything else on there is essentially a carbon copy of that one track. Well, neither is the case here.

There is a certain consistency to the sound here to the point where every song feels like the same band. That said this group is no one trick pony by any means. They move between soaring neo-prog like music to more pop rock based jams that are quite catchy and moody ballad-type pieces. Every track is its own entity and none would ever be mistaken for the others. Nothing here is weak either. The group have their own musical identity, too. Sure, comparisons to other modern bands have some merit and certainly Radiohead comes the closest, but again, no one is likely to think this disc is by anyone other than Barcelona.

This is a great album that is both entertaining and powerful. It’s a great showcase for the varying moods and modes of this band. I like this one a lot. It’s a great starting point for those looking to check out the group on Saturday, but it seems a safe bet this music really comes to life in live performance.