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Trettioåriga Kriget - Hej På Er CD (album) cover

HEJ PÅ ER

Trettioåriga Kriget

 

Crossover Prog

3.42 | 49 ratings

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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
3 stars The Roskilde Festival guy strikes back!

(Before I go off into ramble tamble land here, I'd like to point out that this longish Swedish marathon will have a tiny break after this one, the 10th in a row, but I promise to return to it, as this country's more obscure musical ventures still need all the love I can possibly bring myself to muster up.)

To-the-point songwriting. Tight short tracks, and a melodic hard rock touch to it all. This album encapsulates everything about the guy from Sweden you run into during a Roskilde Festival. He likes his drink, that's for sure. He is head over heels in love with rock, and plays air guitar in his dreams - including those he experiences in daylight. He talks frantically in Skänsk with an upper lip full of snus - and wants everybody to know just how wonderful a band Led Zeppelin is.

I've met my fair share of these guys, and Roskilde wouldn't feel right without 'em. They inspire me to put an album like this on, when I get back into my camp, and if he by some miracle is living inside an audible radius from the music, you're attacked by this caveman scream, for then to be facing a gurgling wild beast 2 seconds later - his hands holding a six pack of warm beers and a half drunken bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Hey man - I didn't know that Danish people were into Trettioåriga Kriget?"

"Well hell - I'm not that sure that they are, but I've always had a thing for Swedish music"

The French kiss feels somewhat intrusive, but then again - he did bring the drink...

Weaving out of late 70s production as you'll pick up in the glacial foggy cleanliness of the synthesizers - swooping into old school guitar laden hard rock with this beautiful Les Paul sound, which is both metallic and loving all at the same time - Hej På Er manages to bring two different sounding periods of rock n' roll together in the same room. Although it's been a while since the two have talked, you kind of get the impression, that the make-up sex is going to be quite spectacular once it gets going. Problem is that it took these guys a bit of time to correlate all these different factors into one big hefty type of deal - with all the exhausts pointing in the same direction. The mix here is really wonderful, don't get me wrong. I happen to love this album, but the instant feel good sensation of the album you get, when you first start playing it, wears off over time - especially if you've recently started digging down in the more complex of progressive musical corridors. This is why Hej På Er is the perfect festival album. It kicks ass, gives off its melodies in an orderly and tight fashion - with absolutely nothing left for the imagination, and to tell you the truth, I get more turned on, when women are wearing feather boas and cucumber dresses with a pound of stardust sprinkled over them. Just like my music, some things are best left for time, wit, imagination and sleepless nights to figure out.

Still, I'd recommend this album to anyone into 70s rock in a heart beat - no question about it. The Swedish vocals are charming and lingering, the guitar playing largely built up around melodic riffing, and already you've got that good old recipe cooking like a lofty kitchen matador doing his thing. Accompanying a steady and well recorded drum beat, you're often treated to different types of rhythmic back-door keyboard wizardry, such as the Stevie Wonder inspired Horner clavinet. Special guests like violin, saxomophone, computer guitar and alternating tempers within the changes from acoustic to electric strings - do colour this record in something that tries to separate it from other such releases of the time, but as much as I love it - and think of long lost summer festivals, warm beer and Swedish snus - Hej På Er is still what it set out to be in the first place, which is fine by me, - but at this stage in my musical-soul-searching-no-holes-barred-adventures-by-night-freeflowing-magical-esoteric-fantasy-circus-voyage, I need music that changes its mood and colours all according to my day, dreams or how my garden looks after a whole day of rain.

Music can be a violent and chameleon like mistress with spikes of Medusa snakes coming out its eyes, but it can also be a jolly old fat fellow singing merrily and heartfelt without ever really surprising you. I'll leave it up to you, which one of these this particular album falls under. It's still a 3.5 star album though, and if you like melodically enhanced motor rock with late night 70s shadings, then this album is for you. It will almost certainly knock your socks off instantly - so let's just hope it stays that way...

Guldbamsen | 3/5 |

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