Titles :
01. Do You Really Want It
02. Centerfold Girl
03. Give Back My Love
04. Don't Feed The Fire
05. Slow Down (just a little)
06. In My Head
07. Lay Down In Hunger
08. Love Will Never Last
09. Tell Me Why
10. Down In The Water
11. Can't Find My Way Home
12. Hard Life

Personnal :
Jens Schulstad: Leadsong, guitar
Jimmy Håkansson: Drums
Anders Toresson: Guitar and vocals
Henrik Hank Engblom: Guitar, vocals and harmonica
Jonas Odis Nordström: Bass

Here is an unknown band, releasing its first «  real  » album just after its first 4 titles EP, but it had the full time since the beginning of the 2000 years, period where the band formed, to settle in playing a lot of Southern or more specifically Texan covers on the Swedish stages (the band comes from a little town right in the middle of the province Hälsingland whose consonance is well known by the Southern enthusiasts). Benefiting from a great stability (the only change was the post of the bassist in 2011), the band, that gave up the covers, build on its great cohesion to send us today this nasty and quiet crafty recording made up with original and varied compositions. Well here and there, we can notice in the music like in the lyrics some mischievous winks (Status Quo, Lynyrd Skynyrd...) that we can consider much more like quotations than like a copy because the whole thing sounds in a really original way, even if we can regret an insufficiant exploiting of the trio of guitarists, the set sounding more like a very united pack than like a «  guitar army  ». To give you an idea, the first double lead try takes place only for the intro of the ninth track («  Tell Me Why  », nothing to do with the Fab Four's tune) ! But this original, technical and very catchy tune will enjoy a lot of Southern ears, by mixing together crafty arrangements and undeniable melodic search. Incidentally from the musical point of view, we notice anyway a certain Black Crowes influence («  Hard Life  »), but well controlled, and though a real expertise of the musicians, most of the time it sounds very heavy, whether in a rock vein or in a more bluesy one, a little rough, really. Fortunately well built backing vocals come and lighten the whole thing. And then Henrik Hegblom's harmonica comes and striates successfully some titles, bringing its share to the original touch of the band. The traditional ballad, lyrical at will and a real success, shows that the band also holds real capacities in the style («  Love will never last  »). I'm sure that John could have talked more learnedly than me about some «  whitesnakian  » or «  purplean  » reflections for some tunes, but I'm not a real specialist, not enough, so I just recommend you to have an interested listen to this promising Scandinavian combo. It deserves it !

Y. Philippot-Degand