Well, let me just start off by listing everything that came to mind while listening to this album: polka, Yes, Fela, Castlevania, The Who, Vivaldi, Sabbath, Renaissance festivals, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and oatmeal. Oatmeal was just because I was hungry, but other than that, I think these touchstones provide a decent preliminary description of the eclectic concoction that is Kebnekajse.

Kebnekajse have been folk rocking since the 1970s and this self-titled album is their first release of new material since 1978. When we think of "folk rock," bands like Fairport Convention might come to mind, and certainly they do have their roots in the traditional music gone by. But Kebnekajse take it one step further and work with swinging chanting melodies rooted in their traditional Swedish homeland. Their name is derived from the highest mountain in Sweden, and their sound has the blood of the hills pumping through it for sure. Think of them as the sunny cousin of Wardruna.

While this approach is very cool in theory ("A Sailor's Life" is one of my favorite Fairport songs), the execution has left me on the fence. At certain points in the album they definitely rock, but at other points the Baroque pomp of it all is just a bit too much and seems hokey. It all works best when they stick to the low end. The opening track of the album, "Leksands Skanklat", really got my hopes up. The opening guitar line is nice: dark, rich, and wet. Soon after, it transitions to the high end and a violin copies the melody. Still later in the song, things get more loose and the violin becomes more ambient. This part got me back on board, but the album seems to tread this terrain consistently. It is surely well composed, but traverses the peaks and valleys of my taste. "Vallat" is similar, as it starts off with a galloping low-end backed by some deep floor toms and more traditional dry African-sounding drumming, yet in no time at all, the wailing guitar melody takes over and I can't help but cringe a little. "Polska fran Enviken" fairs a bit better and takes some tribal, almost funky, drum lines and places them beneath another swinging melody that is carried almost completely by the violin.

So ultimately it does become a matter of taste. I certainly do love "world music," if I may be forgiven such a catch-all. My library is full of a lot of classical Indian music and traditional Japanese flute and drums, but in my experience almost every attempt to "modernize" tradition or fuse indigenous music to Western tastes falls pretty flat. But if you are dying for a skip through the Swedish countryside via some screaming guitar, this album is certainly for you.

-Michael Lutomski