HAGEN

The magnificent Swedish bands GARMARNA, HEDNINGARNA, HOVEN DROVEN and Kenny Håkansson/KEBNEKAISE have blended folk music with Heavy Metal on some of their songs, but HOVEN DROVEN's guitars are often heavier while HAGEN is playing traditional Heavy Metal with reminiscences to DEEP PURPLE and LED ZEPPELIN.

HAGEN is at their best when the folk music parts are dominating. Unfortunately there are some plain Heavy Metal songs too, which aren't bad, but they don't fit into the concept. I hope that they will incorporate even more folk music on forthcoming releases. My favourites are the opening KAIPA song "A Summer Air", "For Kristina", "Questions", the nice violin dominated "Mountain Song" and the Kenny Håkansson/KEBNEKAISE inspired "For Ulf". "For Ulf" could've been taken from Kenny Håkansson's album "Kenny Håkansson spelar Springlekar och Gånglåtar" (Silence label) from 1978.

Most interesting are Anders Rosén's distorted violin and Hans Lundin's keyboards, which includes one of my favourite instruments: Mellotron. Michael Ohlsson is a very good vocalist and Anders Rosén is a real virtuoso on the violin, which is clearly shown on this album.

The beautiful artwork by Stephanie Law (www.shadowscapes.com) is like an illustration from a fairytale, and it also illustrates HAGEN's music very well. This is a really interesting album, and I hope that we will hear more from the band in the future.

Most of the tracks apart of the first one,, which is a rendition of an old KAIPA song, "Mountain Song" and "June" are very much rocking. It's in fact a very good and versatile album, never becoming boring even after repeated spins and a quite impressing debut of this Swedish band. Not sure whether it's a real essential one, but definitively an excellent purchase for fellows with a broad musical spectre. For me worth 4 stars (maybe 3.5 would be more correct)!