On their 9th album, Swedish folkrockers Kebnekajse (named after sweden's highest mountain) continues their journey through world music, mixing it with traditional swedish folkmusic and psychedelic rock and beautiful melodies. For hardcore fans this is probably as good as ever, the album got some good reviews, but there are no supergood songs, it is kind of low key, but it never gets bad though. Just not my type of music even if I can enjoy some of it.

The band is still evolving even though their first album was released in 1971. They re-formed in 2001 after a hiatus of about 30 years and this is their 3rd album since that.

1)Snickar-Anders (6,0) A typical Kebnekajse violin-based melodic 70's instrumental prog.

2)Vallåt efter Britta Jansson (6,5) Low key instrumental.

3)Spelmannen (6,0) Kind of a ballad with clear vocals and nice acoustic guitar melody.

4)Aventure (4,0) Slow monotone song for 8 minutes in talked french about Senegal and Scandinavia. Too boring.

5)Svartbergstrollen (6,5) Uptempo violinsong.

6)Vallåt efter Måns Olsson (5,0) Mystic fingerpicking instrumental.

7)Midsommarnattsdröm (6,5)

8)Tikli ja Tiira (6,0)

9)Battery (3,0) Monotone african rhythms.

Score: 5,50

Kenny Håkansson-vocals and guitars

Thomas Netzler-vocals and bass

Göran Lagerberg-bass (b.1947)

Mats Glengård-guitars, violin, mandolin and vocals (b.1952)

Pelle Ekman-vocals and drums

Hassan Bah-jembas, tummpiano, congoma and voals (b.1944)

This is the 3rd album from Arbete Och Fritid (Work And Sparetime). The band was formed in Uppsala in 1969 and played, as on this album, a mix of styles but always rooted in swedish folkmusic. Many songs are in fact pure folk music. They were mixing folk, jazz, rock and avantgarde and also folk music from many other european countries making the band a interesting and popular at the time. Bosse Skoglund and Tord Bengtsson were new in the band from the last album. Live they did not play songs, just blocks of music who could last for an hour, nor had they decided in forehand what to play. Surely an unique band but I have some difficulties in enjoying the messy and monotone kind of folk music they played.

Trumpetist and percussionist Torsten Eckerman died in 2013.

1)Gånglåt efter Lejsme Per Larsson, Malung (7,0)

2)Elazig-dans (2,0)

3)The european way (4,5)

4)Slavvals (2,0)

5)Halling efter Ulrik Jensestuen, Valdres (3,0)

6)Nidälven (2,0)

7)Petrokemi det kan man inte bada i (3,5)

8)Dagen lider (6,0)

9)Pols efter Steffen Henningsgård, Brekken (4,0)

10)Vägen till Nyvla (5,0)

Score: 3,90

Ove Karlsson-vocals, guitars, bass and cello
Tord Bengtsson-bass (b.1950)

Bosse Skoglund-drums (b.1936)

Torsten Eckerman-trumpet and percussion (1945-2013)

Roland Keijser-saxophone, clarinet, organ and flute (b.1944)

The band Santana's 7th album was a step towards more poppy, vocalbased and R & B and disco-sound. The songs are of poor quality and it gets very cheezy in many places. Luckily this was to be corrected in later albums. Santana shouldn't look for the toplists, they should stay to their roots!

David Brown played with Boz Scaggs in the early 70's and also performed with Santana on the Woodstock festival in 1969.

1)Dance sister dance (Baila mi hermana) (6,0) An good example of Santanas wordmusic inspired by american and african rhythms but there's too much keyboards and there could have been more variation and action in the song.

2)Take me with you (5,0) There's more rock in the first half but then it becomes elevator/70's pornfilmmusic, which occurs here and there on the album.

3)Let me (5,5) Typical uptempo 70's funky disco/rock with some nice guitarplaying.

4)Gitano (6,5) A nice Mexicanstyle calypso or what it's called. It's exiting music!

5)Tell me are you tired (5,0) Too much of the 70's funk-dancestyle. The funky guitarsound is terrible!

6)Europa (Earth's cry heavens smile) (5,5) Balances on the elevatormusicline but some nice guitarplaying saves it a little bit.

7)Let it shine (3,0) Not very good poppy song with terrible synthcomp.

Score: 5,21

Greg Walker-vocals

Devadip Carlos Santana-guitars, percussion and congas (b.1947)

David Brown-bass (1950-2000)

Tom Coster-synthesizer, piano and organ (b.1941)

Ndagu Leon Chancler-drums, percussion and congas (b.1952)

Armando Peraza-congas, bongos and vocals on 4. (b.1924)