KEBNEKAISE III

Kebnekaise's third record was made two years after their second. Now it was 1975 and the beautiful cover shows a giant troll which has integrated himself with the mountain and now he warms his finger on the smoke from a hut. Kebnekaise represents the Swedish folk music and the melodies are very traditional. But the style of it isn't directly Swedish. It has the rock flavor from England and USA and the beat from Africa. It's interesting music. Mostly though I think this folk rock is psychedelic. It has an almost bluesy swing, fortunately for me that it isn't too much of the blues. The orchestra of Kebnekaise is big; Ingemar Böcker plays guitar and sambaros, Pelle Ekman drums, Mats Glenngård plays violin, mandoline and guitar, Bah Hassan plays congas, timbales and watch, Kenny Håkansson plays guitar and violin and Göran Lagerberg plays bass, Pelle Lindström harmonica, violin, tambourine and Thomas Netzler plays bass and drum. It counted to eight fixed musicians here and it is as usual for Kebnekaise.

This record isn't as good as Kebnekaise II which was totally amazing but it still contains fantastic Swedish folk music is a very special representation. The best song here is the first "Leksands brudmarsch" which has a wonderful flow and I'd call it a hit song(9/10). They got a perfect ballance of melody and groove. The second best track is "Balladen om björnbär och nätmelon" has a strange and not so folky name but it is amazing. The best is the main melodical theme of the song, the record's "grande finale" and then comes a longer psychadelic welcome part(9/10). "Polska från Härjedalen" and "Eklundapolskan" is also amazing songs from the depth of the folk(8/10) and "S:t John" is almost as good(7/10). "Polska från Bingsjö" though is more common and what you would expect of this band(6/10) and "Skänklåt till speleman" is nice and includes vocals as the only one here(6/10). You would absolutely though avoid "Mariamá", the album''s only African track. Just as on their last record "Aventure" is the African tunes here not as good as the others(4/10). Kebnekaise can interpret Africa as they do on their record "Ljud från Africa" which I think is very good, but not here. This record will get a weak four star!