Saturday, January 24, 2015

Janne Westerlund- Marshland (Krypt-071/Ektro 118)

Janne Westerlund is the guitar player in Circle, Plain Ride and Pharaoh Overlord from Finland. This is his second solo album and like the first it is pretty much stripped bare with just Janne, his guitar, dulcimer or banjo and the occasional bits of percussion.  The CD features 10 tracks of emotional music. It takes a strong Jesus to carry me Home starts things off in a fairly dark mood. Stranger’s Row is a banjo song that is written for all those people who are down and out on the streets. Powerful melody and lyrics. Wow. Treetops is a strummed acoustic track with layered vocals, a simple drum beat to go with the flowing vocals. Tar is another banjo song for the hobo.. I have found these songs to be amazingly powerful tracks.  Long tall Grass is very passionately sung with very simple instrumentation. I’m Wrong is a more happy song. See Thru is a truly incredible song with great lyrics and deep, dark emotion in these few notes.. This track I have played over and over again. Wow.. Listening Rain returns us to the banjo. The title track, Marshland has the most complex instrumentation of any track with a cool effect added on the vocal to compliment the organ, guitar and simple percussion as well as horn. It is also the longest track at over 8 mins. Love is the Point ends this CD. Simple, emotional music that really speaks to me. I loved this record. Brilliant. The video below is a track from his first album but it will give you an idea of the flavor of this record as well. 



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