Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Janne Westerlund- There’s a Passage (Ektro Records KRYPT-117)

Janne, is best well known as one of the guitar players in Circle/Pharaoh Overlord. This is his third solo album. I really loved this first two and he was such a fun and cool entertainer to see live as well.  The first two albums were pretty stripped down with just Janne and some percussion and a lot of this record is the same (the way I like it) but he also has drums, and other instruments played by different folks on several of the tracks this time around. The opening number is an vocal only track with 4 different vocals (Janne, Richard, Faith, Sirpa) and interesting lyrics. Very cool and different. Sick Child is hypno blues number with passionate vocals and simple strummed guitar and some drums (by Janne, who also plays dulcimer, keyboards and percussion on some tracks). Run No More is driven by the drums (like Pharaoh Overlord!) and a bit later the guitar comes in later and gets some heavy riffing going on. Not usual on his solo records. A bit of keyboard can be heard as well joining in towards the end. Oh Wind features the dulcimer and is like an old Irish fold song. Days of Love is a slow moving track with beautiful guitar and a kick drum with vocals. Janne is digging deep on this one. Side B starts with a song sung in Finnish (Kuoelman lautturin tytär). Just vocal, guitar, and simple drum. A bit haunting. Ydinukio is a song written by Circle and Janne. This one is also quite haunting with a repeated guitar line (should not be surprising, it is a circle cover!) and drums. IT sort of trys to rock out! Back to Etcetera sort of sucks you into it’s hypnosis. Janne also plays some keyboards on this one but it is the lyrics and vocal delivery that grabs me most. You come from Far is a shorter track with keys and drums and multilayered vocals. Sirpa helps out as well on this one. The title track ends this record and features Juho on trombone!  I just love his stuff. Please check it out. A very passionate artist.

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