Speaking English as a first language can be both a blessing and a curse. The fact that it is so widespread across our planet, and for the majority, the international language of Metal and Rock, means that I can stick a CD into the player from bands from all over the world and know what the band is saying instantly is the blessing. The curse is that it means that Anglophones such as myself can become as lazy as feck and thus, wrapped in the insulating blanket of the English tongue, miss out on so much good music. Well, I try not to comply to the stereotypes, and will sample music from around the globe even when it’s an act that sticks firmly to their native tongue without bowing to commercial pressure. Once such act is Swedish self-declared space rock four piece Second Sun, and on their latest release ‘Kampen Går Vidare’ (‘The Fight Goes On’, if you’re interested), they don’t bend to convention and ply their rocking trade without compromise.
Opener ‘Sång om våren’ is a Progtastic combination of hard rock and soaring vocals, perfectly invoking the seventies era of flapping flares, double denim, and luxurious moustaches that the band so clearly worship and seek to evoke via the medium of skilfully played guitar harmonies. The goodness continues with ‘Du är allt du har’, which nods in the direction of Bad Company at their zenith care of a stack heeled boot stamped on a stage monitor for the guitar solo, whilst ‘Slå tillbaks’ strikes back with the pace of a Thin Lizzy gallop that flows into ‘Attack’, channelling an early Angus swagger to the guitar; indeed, if the boat that had taken Messrs Young, Scott, and Young been diverted to Sweden en route to Australia, this could have been their sound, and whilst title track ‘Kampen går vidare’ may start with gently plucked acoustic guitars accompanying a pastoral flute, the rock soon rolls in with a sneering confidence.
‘Hatar det ändå’ is redolent of the cocksure confidence of a seventies Blue Öyster Cult track, a swagger that continues into ‘Vem ska bry sig’, rolling into the stamping chug of ‘Om alla bara var mer som jag’, all before the album finishes with the anthemic ‘Gör alltid ditt bästa för de du älskar.’ Like this nine track and 32 minute album, this review will remain short and sweet, and like your reviewer, it has its tastes firmly stuck back in the seventies, although admittedly, unlike the members of Second Sun, I was alive then. ‘ Kampen Går Vidare’ is an album of unpretentious timeless hard rock, and it would be easy to imagine Second Sun having opened for Deep Purple on a 1974 tour of Sweden. I’ve no idea what these fine long of hair and wide of flare chaps are singing about, but I do know it sounds good.
(7.5/10 Spenny)
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