’60s garage rockers meet twenty-first century Finns

While 1960s garage rock has had its revival in Northern European with bands like the Nomads, this may be the first collaboration that actually mates first-generation American garage rockers to twenty-first century European players. The unusual collaboration brings together Steve Blodgett and Mike Brassard of the upstate New York Mike & The Ravens with a quintet of Finns who radically rework the Americans’ songs. Their initial collaboration, 2009’s Fly, Them Bird Things, Fly, was a more traditional pop-rock record than this sophomore outing; here the band balances electric and acoustic guitars and works with a country-tinged sound that has mandolin providing staccato accents against Arttu Tolonen’s moody lap steel washes. Vocalist Salla Day sings Dylan-y nasal with Tolonen blowing harmonica on the thumping blues “Silver Oldsmobile” and Timo Vikkula’s intricately picked guitar figures on “Raised in Bangor” bring to mind Clarence White. Jake Holmes’ previously unreleased “Marionette” is refashioned here in a slinky Kate Bush style, and a few songs, most notably “Birmingham” and the raga-like drone of “East Colorado Plain,” find a nice psychedelic groove. Perhaps the most bewitching aspect of this album is that even when sung and played by twenty-first century Finns, and even with the new textures and crisp modern production, Blodgett and Brassard’s songs connect across time and space to their garage rock and sunshine psych of the 60s. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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