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Reviews

Harv — Töst!
(NorthSide NSD6070, 2002, CD)

by Jon Davis, Published 2003-02-01

Töst! Cover art

For their last album (2000’s Must, reviewed in #22), Harv consisted of fiddlers Magnus Stinnerbom and Daniel Sandén-Warg, occasionally joined by all-star guests on acoustic guitar and percussion. Since that release, they’ve expanded to a four-piece, with Peter Ståhlgren on guitar and Christian Svensson on percussion, sometimes a drum kit, more often miscellaneous things it’s hard to identify. If you’ve heard Väsen, you know what kind of rhythm parts to expect. The guitar is almost always cast in a supporting role with the fiddles taking the leads. I’m using the term “fiddle” a bit broadly here, for they play violin, viola, and traditional Swedish variants, providing some variety in tone color and pitch. The stand-out track is “Salvo,” which has some prominent and interesting drumming (not as heavy as Hedningarna, but more aggressive than on the rest of the album) and a quick, twisting melody. On “Sviten” the addition of bassist Sebastian Dubé fills out the sound nicely and provides some welcome low end. And for something really different, Ale Möller plays a bit of shawm on “Dåren” for a wild and wooly medieval touch. Harv give us a good dose (or even an overdose) of excellent Swedish fiddling with a few modern touches, and my only complaint is that I would enjoy an occasional break, say allowing the guitar to take a lead — the short bits Ståhlgren gets on “Kejsarn” are very nice.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 26, 2002 releases

Related artist(s): Harv

 

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