Band : Jorn

Album title : Lonely Are The Brave

Label : Frontiers

Distributor : Rough Trade

Release date : 06/06/2008

Release : CD

Wanna know more about the career of Norwegian singer Jorn Lande? Check out the reviews I did in January of last year when Frontiers released the albums The Gathering (comprising archive material, some re-mixed, some re-recorded) and Unlocking The Past (a collection of cover versions). After that, Ken Hensley (former Uriah Heep keyboarder) recruited Jorn to sing on no less that 5 songs on his July 2007 released Blood On The Highway...and TobiasSammet (of Edguy fame) also had him guesting on his Avantasia concept album. September then saw the release of Jorn's 2-disc Live In America.Eventually Lande returned to Denmark and Tommy Hansen (with whom he's recorded before) to record nine new original songs for the Lonely Are The Brave album.

The result is hardly surprisingly in the same vein as Jorn's previous solo material. Still in his band are guitarists Tore Moren (ex-Rain, Carnivora, but also on the 2001 Jorn solo album Worldchanger, which was Jorn's first collaboration with Tommy Hansen – he returned to the fold with 2005's Tommy Hansen produced The Duke)and Jorn Viggo Lofstad (with Jorn since 2003's Out To Every Nation), and drummer Willy Bendiksen (formerly of The Snakes, joined Jorn prior The Duke), and returning to the core in the ever-changing position of bassist is Sid Ringsby (also a former The Snakes member, he was there for the 2000 debut solo Jorn album Starfire and its 2001 follow-up Worldchanger). In other words: Jorn's backing band has stabilized! Another thing which hasn't changed are Jorn's influences which are solidly based in the classic Hard Rock and Heavy Metal from such celebrated acts as Dio, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, and Whitesnake...and the man's vocal delivery, which is simply of the highest standards in the genre! If you know Jorn from the past, whether that's as a solo artist or in one of the bands he was in (Vagabond, The Snakes, Masterplan), you already know what to expect, and need not doubt about purchasing the new album. If you still need to get acquainted with the man, surf to myspace.com/realjorn, where you'll find 3 songs posted from The Duke, and one each off The Gathering and Unlocking The Past, as well as the title track from the new album.

My personal feelings about the new Jorn album are somewhat mixed, because where we do get lande's magnificent vocal delivery as a definitively positive item, there's also the somewhat simpler delivery from the guitarists. I mean, in quite a few of the songs it's almost hard to tell that you hàve two guitarists playing, the two opting mostly to play the same (rhythmic) melodies in stead of using their duality to create a more exhilerating music (with rhythm ànd lead guitar). Not that àll songs are composed that way, but when push comes to shove, there's simply too much of the simpler variety of songs on this album for me to stay interested in the new Jorn for all too long. The rating, as you might gather, is accordingly low, in spite of Lande's delectable vocal delivery!

80/100

Tony.