AVENTURE

Kebnekajse's latest effort from last year: "Aventure" shows a lot of the group's talent and is worth listen to, but not to spend much money on. It is Kebnekajse's ninth album and featured the old time line up: Kenny Håkansson (guitar, vocals), Thomas Netzler (bass, vocals), Göran Lagerberg (bas), Hassan Bah (jembas, thumb piano, congoma, vocals), Mats Glenngård (violin, yahama electric violin, mandolin, guitar, vocals) and Pelle Ekman (drums and vocals). They have all played in Kebnekajse for several years and really know how to play.

Unfortunately this isn't their best record. The two "african" songs "Aventure" and "Battery" are worse than many other form of music. They seem meaningless and very boring like long jams and not especially interesting at all. Otherwise even this record contains great stuff to enjoy such as "Snickar-Anders" the opener which is both dark and groovy and traditional and very melodical. Is that song they caught speed and joy and it is hard to not move to that song. "Vallåt efter Britta Jansson" is slower but also pure and nice. "Spelmannen" was nice to hear live but theis recorded version isn't so good, quite bad actually and Kenny Håkansson isn't the best singer (but a marvelous guitarist). "Svartbergstrollen" has speed and splendor and shows exactly what a great mixture of folk and psychedelic this is. The three following pieces are also nice with a wonderful melody in "Midsommarnattsdröm" for example. But do not listen to Aventure or Battery, they could not be more boring. How did they ever think of giving the record its name from that [&*!#] track? A big question. I think this could have been better if "Kebne" had waited until this year with releasing it. They could have recorded more and better songs.

Still the most tracks show how great this band can be and I am willing to give it three stars. I recommend you to explore Kebnekajse, but begin with their second(blue) record from 1973.

Published in 2012 through Subliminal Sounds Records, "Aventure" is the 9th studio album of the Swedish cross-culture Folk-Rock band KEBNEKAJSE, their most recent effort to date.

The band was formed in early 70's taking their name from one of Sweden's highest mountains, and the musicians who contributed the album have been playing together since 1972. They use guitars, violins, mandolin, jembas, congas, drums, bass, and other assorted instruments on this album to create music which is influenced by traditional Swedish folk, African rhythms, old school Art-Rock and Folk-Rock.

There are no traces of Sympho-Rock or Jazz-Fusion or Hard-Rock on "Aventure" like on the band's earlier albums. This is mostly instrumental recording featuring 4 traditional tunes arranged by the band's members, and 5 original tracks of which 3 songs are with vocals in Swedish, French and Zuzu language. The instrumental performance is soft, elegant, and mellow, but vocal-tracks are a bit boring, unless you're a fan of "Northern" neofolk ("Spelmannen") or "French West African" chanson ("Aventure", "Battery").

Anyway, "Aventure" shows a lot of the band's talents. It's quite enjoyable effort but not their best recording.