Strong lyrics and strong melodies – Aadland should get his breakthrough now
Tom Roger Aadland has released a brilliant album where he translated Bob Dylan’s “Blood On The Tracks” song by song. He has also released two solid solo albums the last years.
With this album, it is time he gets his big breakthrough. It consists of eleven Aadland songs all containing intense, rich lyrics. The musical content has great variety, and some of the songs have a clear hit potential, especially when Aadland moves into country-rock terrain.
It starts with the title song, which contains echoes of both Thåström and Tom Waits. The album then moves into more conventional landscape, but even though Aadland is not musically groundbreaking, the songs are so good and the lyrics so extraordinarily well formulated that it gets straight to you, at least for this reviewer.
“Have you had that feeling/That everything’s a replacement/For something/Out there somewhere” is a short example of how he writes. The album is loaded with formulations that put complicated love and existential questions into words.
Trygve Lundemo, Adresseavisen 5/6