Review Summary: November’s debut album is an excellent piece of vintage rock and an essential source of inspiration for the contemporary breed of homologous acts.
If the 21st century vintage rock revival has succeeded in anything, it’s that it proved the genre’s great appeal over a much younger audience. On a later stage, the quality of contemporary bands prompted new fans to dig deep and search for their primary sources of inspiration, while older fans started to dust their old vinyls and take their ‘70s trousers out of the closet to see if they still fit in them. Above all countries, Sweden has warmly embraced vintage and progressive rock, ever since its atypical birth during the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. The immediate impact of bands such as Grand Funk Railroad, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Black Sabbath soon urged a whole generation of Swedish youngsters to exploit the country’s excellent educational system in learning a musical instrument and form bands of their own. Sweden’s November are a definitive case in point. Assembled in a Swedish youth club, their finalized lineup - Christer Stålbrandt (bass, vocals), Richard Rolf (guitars) and Björn Inge (drums) - was the end product of several prior and rather unstable incarnations, while their debut album
En Ny Tid Är Här... is an excellent vintage rock album and a great source of inspiration for contemporary and homologous outfits.
November were among the first Swedish rock acts that wrote lyrics in their mother tongue during the ‘70s. A non-trivial mixture of German and English and equally smooth sounding with the latter constituent language, the Swedish language, along with the soothing vocals of bassist Christer Stålbrandt, form an extraordinary combination for November to approach vintage rock from their own perspective. Floating over a tight but discrete rhythm section, their hard rock/blues attempts (“Mount Everest”, “Lek Att Du Är Barn Igen”) are excellently complemented by Rolf’s subtle yet essential leads and the outstanding use of the flute. The latter attains a gentle, progressive rock character, not too far from the relevant work of iconic players such as Ian Anderson. Being strategically scattered throughout the album, the blues songs along with their latent hard rock leanings consist of fantastic introductions for the pure hard rock (“Ta Ett Steg I sagans land”, “En annan värld”) and hippie/boogie (“Sekunder”, “Åttonde) groove of the album. In this respect, the rhythm section of Stålbrandt and Inge is stepping out of the blues foreplay through Inge’s frenzied but well-thought drumming and Stålbrandt’s orgasmic bass lines (listen to “Åttonde”), while Rolf’s lead and rhythm guitars are cruising the songs with style. It will take no more than 2-3 listening sessions in realizing that November rest on the same level of excellence with their heroes, i.e. bands such as Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Grand Funk Railroad, to name a few.
What is left to be said;
En Ny Tid Är Här... deserves to be discovered by those who haven't given in to its infinite merits. No matter how many times one will leave oneself to be enticed by it, its juices will remain abundant in easing the thirst for mesmerizing vintage rock.
