Not Folk-Rock; Original Rock Songs Based on Folk Melodies
bogubundus2 | Rochester, NY | 05/11/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is great stuff. This could hardly be called folk-rock, however. What these chaps have managed to do is create original rock songs using melodies lifted from Swedish folk songs. And the results are spectacular. It's the perfect marriage of the melody of folk and the power of rock. It's all here: head-banging-70s-style-riff-rock, 90's heavy metal, and progressive rock, all with those omnipresent beautiful melodies. It's catchy, it's melodic, it's crunching, and at times it even starts to stray into rock-ballad territory but never gets overly sappy. The musicianship is phenomenal for a debut CD: there is great guitar playing throughout and a nice combination of atmospheric synthesizers and Hammond organ. Several songs sound like they could be FM hits on a "classic rock" type station as they stick in your head with incredible hooks. The complaints are very minor: the vocalist sounds like a more mellow, more laid-back, less annoying version of Glenn Hughes crossed with the AC/DC singer (whose name escapes me because I'm not an AC/DC fan) crossed with Joe Cocker. Imagine what each of these 3 vocalists might sound like always singing quietly rather than screaming, and this approximates what the vocalist sounds like at various times. If you don't particularly care for any of these vocalists, the vocals take getting used to. (But at least there are none of those awful death-growling-grunt vocals which ruin so many heavy metal songs). A couple of the songs have really goofy, stupid, inane lyrics (the lyrics to 'Sweet Tender Sofie' are especially annoyingly trite and cliched)and a robotic-disco voice is used on part of one song. And production-wise, the bottom end is lacking. Even with the bass turned up all the way, much of the time you can hardly hear the bass. But really, these are minor complaints. The music is so good that these little annoyances hardly get in the way. There simply aren't any weak songs here. In terms of musicianship and song-writing, this is as good as anything out there today. I'm sure this group would obtain a VERY loyal following if they got any airplay whatsoever. This is a MUST not only for those who prefer the extreme ROCK end of the spectrum of folk-rock but also for fans of melodic rock, riff-rock, tasteful symphonic metal, and hard-edged progressive rock."
