SVARTISEN

FIRST REVIEW OF THIS ALBUM

Norwegian trio Kornmo arose early 2015 from the ashes of the band Morild which disbanded around 2014. Chief composer and bass player Nils Larsen wished to continue making music, but sought a slightly different challenge this time, namely focussing entirely on instrumental music. Along with his friend of 50 years and previous band mate from Morild, Odd-Roar Bakken, he started a new musical project to fulfil this wish. To complete the band, Nils asked his son Anton Larsen to join on drums, now Kornmo was formed. Kornmo is a project that solely records original progressive instrumental music, and the band does not perform any live gigs.

After my review about the second album entitled Vandring (2019) here are my words about Kornmo its debut album (2017, re-released in 2019). The title is inspired by the glacier found in Glomfjorden in the north of Norway by the same name, which loosely means 'the black ice'. The 11 instrumental tracks sound firmly in the symphonic rock tradition, the structure is very simple, with the focus is on embellishing the melodic and harmonic music with an intense guitar sound and wonderful vintage keyboards.

The one moment the climate is dreamy with acoustic guitar and soaring Mellotron violins, or tender piano and fragile electric guitar. The next moment you can enjoy slow and compelling atmospheres with moving guitar and lush Hammond, or sumptuous outbursts with flashy Minimoog flights (like in Fallvind) and fiery guitar runs. To me Camel sounds as a main source of inspiration, especially in the tracks Sn', Nordlys, Smeltevann (swirling Hammond and flashy pitchbend driven Minimoog), Uv'r (dynamic and bombastic with fiery guitar), Sn'tind (great work on the Hammond) and the beautiful closer F'n, a Symphonic Rock Heaven, the wonderful violin sound comes from the Nord Stage as a MIDI-keyboard.

Alongside Camel I also trace obvious elements from other Seventies symphonic rock bands and artists. But Kornmo certainly doesn't sound derivative, lots of own musical ideas, highly recommended to the symphomaniacs who are into simply structured but very tastefully arranged melodic and harmonic instrumental 24-carat symphonic rock.

My rating: 3,5 star.

3.5 stars. This is the debut from KORNMO out of Norway, a mature trio of bass, drums, guitar/keyboards. A Kornmo is apparently a popular cracker sold in Norway which made me smile making me think of FRUITCAKE also from Norway. Nils the bass player composed the music and the band arranged it all. They originally released this in 2017 recording it in Odd-Roar's(guitarist/keys) home studio. It was self-released on a cdr but then in 2018 they re-released it on another cdr, again self-released but completely re-mixed, obviously not happy with the original sound. I have the 2022 version released on Apollon Records and mastered by WHITE WILLOW's Jacob Holm-Lupo. So at least I have the best version possible.

This is an all instrumental album worth almost 66 minutes over 11 songs. I do prefer this to their latest "Fimbulvinter" an all instrumental concept album that just didn't do a lot for me. Very little in the way of breakouts or contrasts etc. which we do thankfully get here. I really feel that this comes across as a "paint by numbers" Prog record where on each song we get constant changes and repeated themes which is what we all like because we're on this site but again like their latest this is a long album for this type of music. Give me 42 minutes! Anyway I'm thankful to hear some outbreaks of guitar and organ on here along with mellotron and this is a good album just not my cup of tea these days.