Grand Island
Say No To Sin
Racing Junior

A debut album from a Norwegian group isn't always something to write home about. Grand Island got a lot of attention after they performed at By-larm (Norwegian gathering of unsigned bands). The music is quite traditional rock with detouring into country and bluegrass landscape, it feels like they are stuck in the mid 70's.

Nothing wrong being retro, as long as you make good music. That's what I'm gonna tell you a bit about. The album consists of eleven songs, they have used Ken Sluiter and Steven Macdonald for mixing. The album seems to be professionally produced. If I have to be honest I will say they copycat Atomic Swing, which did this kind of music 17 years ago. They have a comeback this year as well.

The songs are mostly uptight with a vibrant vocal, which after a while can be a bit annoying. Mexican trumpets, choiring nice, Hammond 'keyboard', banjo make it a quite enjoyable listening for some tracks. Stand out track is "Us Annexed", which has many of the elements mentioned above. Nothing really bad, but it misses gathering of a theme. It makes it an uneven listening in the end. Quite decent for a debut album, though.

Copyright © 2006 Geir Fladseth