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Jorn - Unlocking The Past

Published Jan. 25 2007


*
=Staff's pick

On And On*
Fool For Your Loving
Cold Sweat*
Lonely Is The Word/Letters From The Earth
Burn
Feel Like Making Love
Kill The King
Perfect Strangers
Naked City*
The Day The Earth Caught Fire


Genre Hard Rock/Metal
Jorn Lande
Vocals
Tracks 10
-
Guitar
Runningtime 49 Min.
-
Guitar
Label Frontiers Records
-
Bass
Release 26 Jan 2007
-
Drums
Country Norway
-
Keyboard
Similar artists Whitesnake, Rainbow, Deep Purple

The "Coverdale" from Norway is back with not only one but two albums less than year after his previous record, entitled The Duke. These are however not new albums so to speak since one of them is a compilation of his earlier works and the other one is a cover album. Jörn Lande's respectability has grown immensely during the years due to his great work with his solo career and in bands like Masterplan, Millenium, Beyond Twilight, Ark, etc. Personally I find his achievements in Masterplan to be his finest and it was with great sadness I received the news him parting ways with the band. Looking upon his solo career he has previously released four albums and out of those I rank Worldchanger (2001) as his best work to date.

Unlocking The Past is supposed to be an ode to the ones who has musically inspired Jorn throughout the years. The idea behind cover albums is understandable and sometimes quite exciting on paper but most of the time they tend to be more interesting than good. Enjoyable the first few times but forgotten shortly thereafter. This cover album includes both interesting AND good stuff as well as the boring and predictable ones. I mean; Fool For Your Loving! Who would have guessed…?

The album opens in a great way since On And On (Michael Schenker Group) suits Jorn perfectly. His metalized version of Cold Sweat (Thin Lizzy) is also a big highlight here but my favorite cut must be the fresh and vital Naked City (Kiss), mainly because it's so different from the rest. What lowers the judgment in the end is that the choice of songs to cover could have been much more interesting. Burn, Kill The King and Perfect Strangers are indeed great songs but how many times haven't we heard those? The performance is flawless and dedicated but I'm afraid that this cover album will meet the same destiny as all other cover albums; it is doomed to be a dust collector…

Footnote: Since the songs on this album are recorded with different constellations there are a lot of musicians involved in total. Here is the complete list of those: (Guitars): Tore Moren, Jörn Viggo Lofstad, Ralph Santolla, Ronnie Le Tekrö, Shane French (Bass): Morty Black, Manfred Binder, Steinar Krokmo, Espen Mjöen (Drums): Stian L Kristoffersen, Willy Bendiksen, Oliver Hanson, John Macaluso (Keyboards): Don Airey, Ronny Tegner

See also review of: Life On Death Road , Traveller , Symphonic , Lonely Are The Brave , The Gathering , The Duke

Performance
Originality
Production
Vocals
Songwriting

8

-

7

8

-

 
Summary



6 chalices of 10 - Hawk


Related links:

www.jornlande.com
www.myspace.com/realjorn