JORN - Unlocking The Past
April 9, 2007, 17 years ago
(Frontiers)
Issued in conjunction with The Gathering (a best of his past, some re-recorded, some remixed), Unlocking The Past is a covers album, some new, some previously issued, some intended for issue as bonus tracks and then not released. MSG’s ‘On And On’ opens, and it’s the worst of the lot, stiff and not strongly sung. But then things settle in for ‘Fool For Your Loving’, which of course is perfect for Norse vocal god Jorn Lande – amusingly so. ‘Cold Sweat’, ‘Burn’, ‘Perfect Strangers’, ‘Kill The King’… these are classics built for Jorn’s larger than life pipes, and the cool thing is that the various musos are up to the task of sending all of this over the top with chops and blinding production. ‘Burn’ in particular is a nutty tour de force, while ‘Kill The King’ is just ornery. Nicest choices come with the obscure ‘Lonely Is The Word’/’Letters From Earth’ medley – bloody first Dehumanizer cover I know of – and a pomp send-up of City Boy’s ‘The Day The Earth Caught Fire’ which, granted, was on Jorn’s debut, Starfire. Still, so weird hearing this Queen-like classic (although Lion’s Share covered it too), and Jorn typically lathers it up with all sorts of keys and lightning fast drums and vocal layers… he is a dandy, isn’t he?
