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Reviews

White Willow — Sacrament
(Karisma KAR, 2000/2024, CD / LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2000-10-01

Sacrament Cover art

I wouldn’t recommend resetting the volume in the first few minutes of starting this disc, else you risk blowing out your speakers at the first of many dynamic transitions from soft to LOUD (and back again). These guys take Änglagård’s similar tendency to its logical extreme. Used sparingly such transitions can go a long way, but on this album (as well as on Änglagård’s Epilog), they lose their power from overuse. That’s definitely not the only comparison with Änglagård that can be made, either; the delicate pastoral acoustic guitar and flute interchanges that abound will also remind. But clearly White Willow have their own character, a gentle folky persona fronted by a female voice, punctuated with heavy bombastic rock outbursts. Like many of their Scandinavian prog brethren (Landberk, Anekdoten, The 3rd and the Mortal), a slow pace combined with a very pensive minor-key melodicism characterizes most of the compositions, although those softer acoustic based parts offer enough variety to keep the album interestiing over the duration. The only survivor from the last edition of the band (besides leader / guitarist / vocalist Jacob Holm-Lupo) is singer Sylvia Erichsen, who’s very pretty angelic voice fits the softer and more delicate parts of the music perfectly, but sometimes sounds strained in the louder, heavier passages as she tries to compete for space with the full band. That said, this disc is still a winner; by comparison to previous WW releases, this one is by far the most cohesive. Fans of heavy symphonic rock in the 90s Scandinavian tradition would do well to pick this one up. Recommended.

Filed under: Reissues, Issue 20, 2024 releases, 2000 recordings

Related artist(s): White Willow, Jacob Holm-Lupo / Telepath

More info
http://whitewillow.bandcamp.com/album/sacrament

 

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