Band : The Crystal Caravan
Album title : Against The Rising Tide
Label : Transubstans
Distributor : Clearspot
Release date : 2010
Review : CD

‘We need focus’ says The Crystal Caravan’s newest effort, due out on Transubstans. The Crystal Caravan are playing a powerful mixture of 70's blues rock (Deep Purple, Free, Uriah Heep) with sixties psych elements (The Doors, Jefferson Airplane) and a few jamming parts (Allman Bros Band).

It's a refreshing groovy sound with enough heaviness and drive, not groundbreaking but performed in a solid and appealing way. I absolutely love the keys and especially the percussion spread all over this album, the bluesy guitar solo's are very tasty as well. Every track was firing on all cylinders, but if I had to I'd say “Take what yours”, the MC5-like “Love and direction” and the finale “Wrecking ball” definitely blew me away the most.“Apple Hotel” and “Blues blues” showcase the Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque feel of their music best,Niklas "RG" Gustafssonvox taking centre stage

This Umeå, Swedish based septet knows how to write and perform songs. The songwriting is not really original, but Against The Rising Tide will certainly add something to the grey masses of the genre, because people love this kind of stuff.

87/100

Cosmicmasseur.