A busy summer!

This summer will be pretty awesome! I have quite a few great shows to look forward to.

In June I'll see Neurosis for the first time, two weeks after that Iron Maiden plays in Stockholm on their "Maiden England" tour, one week after that there is the Slottsfjell festival here in Tonsberg and late in July Smashing Pumpkins are coming to Oslo!

The biggest act for me at Slottsfjell is without a doubt, Converge. I consider all four of these bands to be among my, maybe, top ten favourite bands so it'll be an incredible month!

And as if this isn't enough we also have tickets for the Black Sabbath show in November. Quite the year 2013...

Skogen Brinner - 1st

This might be the best record of 2013! I've been a fan of Skogen Brinner for quite some time now and I have the two releases prior to this debut album, a cassette EP and a 7" single. On these two releases there are five songs (six if you include the cover of Black Sabbath's "Electric Funeral") and four of these are also on the album, this means five new songs.

"1st", which is the name of the album, is packed with cool fuzzy riffs. Most of the songs would stsnd strong as single tracks and they tiw together really well to get that album feel.

I wrote about the cassette that it was the perfect combination of Black Sabbath and Pugh Rogefeldt (I've seen this beeing mentioned a lot in other reviews as well) and it's still a fitting description. One of the greatest bands of all time and one of my favourite Swedish musicians, "1st" couldn't be better!

I must also mention that this album is released on Subliminal Sounds, a label that always delivers incredible stuff!

Record Store Day

Yesterday was the annual Record Store Day all over the world. The Garden was of course participating in the celebrations and we had an incredible day in both of our stores. It exceeded all of our expectations.

This year there were an insane amount of releases. I only got one for myself... I got the new single from David Bowie. It's a double A-sided with the songs "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" and "Where Are We Now", both taken from his brilliant last album "The Next Day".

There were a few releases more that I wanted, the re-issue of At The Drive-In's "Relationship In Command" and GZA's "Liquid Swords" in a really cool new version with a chess game and other stuff. We weren't able to get these in our store though. Hopefully they can arrive at a later point.

Two records to look forward too.

The two greatest albums of 2010 were Wolf People's "Steeple" and The National's "High Violet". This year they are both releasing follow ups to their previous masterpieces. I have great expectations for both of these.

Here's a video for the first song from Wolf People's upcoming album "Fain"


I still haven't found a new song from The National's new album titled "Trouble Will Find Me" but they have released the cover:

David Bowie - The Next Day LP

David Bowie - The Next Day

Finally I got my hands on the new Bowie vinyl on Saturday. The vinyl is not supposed to be available until the 29th of March, but a glitch at the Norwegian distributors saw them send out all pre-orders to Norwegian stores. So it's not officially for sale for little over a week.

Oh, how I looked forward to this record as soon as I heard the news about it in January. Since then I've listened to the two songs that were made available. First it was "Where Are We Now?" that is one of the stronger tracks on the album, not the best one though I think. In February "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" was released and it wasn't as good as the first single on the first few listenings but it grew.

The album was released for various streams and such long before I heard it the first time. I wanted to wait until I got my hands on the vinyl. Obviously I wasn't quite patient enough to do that. I gave it a few listens on Spotify last week and since Saturday it has been on the record player almost non-stop. However I had to put "Aladdin Sane" on the record player yesterday as my father had made a  notice that the brilliant song"You Feel So Lonely You Could Die" on "The Next Day" was the "Drive In Saturday" of 2013. He was quite right. And it is a good measure for this record. It actually measures up to a lot of the stuff Bowie did in the 70s, and that is saying a lot! Some of that material are among the greatest albums of all time.

A record that really lived up to my high expectations, from one of my all time favourite artists! Now I'm just hoping for a tour, or at least some shows in Scandinavia or the UK, so I get the chance to see him live.

My Bloody Valentine - m b v vinyl

Yesterday it finally arrived, 22 years after the last album was released. My Bloody Valentines new album arrived in the mail!

I wrote a short blog about the album after the first listen a month ago.

When I wrote that blog I was perhaps a bit negative as I was hoping for some more material like the earlier stuff the band did, pre "Loveless". I still think that "You Made Me Realise" and some songs on "Isn't Anything" are the best songs the band has made, whereas "Loveless" is arguably the best album they made.

I've been listening to the album a lot the past month as I got a free download when I pre-ordered the vinyl and it has grown and grown. It's a perfect progression in the band's career and it is amazing how it is possible to pick up like this where you left of over 20 years ago. It feels like an album that was released just a couple of years after "Loveless". They are not in anyway repeating themselves but they are still on the path which started with some (in MBV terms) pretty straight forward material in the early days where started to experiment some on "Isn't Anything" and then with "Loveless" they went all out, with was possible at the time. I've read somewhere that Kevin Shields record the guitars for the album and then put effects, after effects, after effects and finally erased the original guitar tracks, so that it's actually the least guitar based guitar based album ever, if you know what I mean?

Side A on "m b v" it's pretty as straight forward as you could expect from My Bloody Valentine today, it's beautiful soundscapes and you can sense some sort of melodies, not as clear as on "Loveless" but just as beautiful. The B side gets really experimental with almost drone parts and repetitive drums and guitar loops that will get your girlfriend ask "are they finished soon?". Oh, how I wish it wouldn't! But it does eventually, after 46 minutes of musical beauty. I still feel the album finishes incredibly strong with the six minute monster "Wonder 2".

Nine Inch Nails

In honour of today's news that Nine Inch Nails are now officially "active" again I'm playing their 1994 masterpiece "The Downward Spiral".

In a "note" Trent Reznor explains about some extensive touring plans for 2013 and 2014. I haven't yet seen the band perform live, so I hope I get my chance on this tour. And let's hope for a new album as well!