Navigation Blues
By Martine Ehrenclou
Danish premiere roots rockers Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado drop their eighth full length, Navigation Blues on September 30 via Provogue/Mascot Records.
Multi award-winners, the formidable eight-piece Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado blend Chicago blues, soul, rock & roll, and boogie with a modern sensibility. Navigation Blues boasts compelling melodies, catchy guitar riffs, and on most of the 12 tracks, a rich, expansive sound with strings, horns and backing singers. All with Thorbjørn Risager at the helm who Dan Akroyd said has “a great voice, great delivery and feels the blues.”
With Risager’s deep-in-the-trenches vocals, soulful guitar riffs, and a stunning group of musicians to back him up, Navigation Blues is an impressive release with a dynamic selection of well-crafted songs.
A certain confidence can be found in Risager’s vocals and guitar, a laid back approach to harnessing the music. Maybe you call that cool. The visual style of the band as well as the songs also have that unruffled quality, as if to say, “We got this. Sit back and enjoy.”
Produced by Søren Bøjgaard, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, all songs on Navigation Blues were written by Thorbjørn Risager except three co-writes with Joachim Svensmark.
With precision, Risager and the band launch into the evocative album opener, “Navigation Blues,” a pre-war blues stomp about having lost one’s center. Risager sings with grit and soul, “Truckloads of darkness here, and my matches are soaking wet… it won’t be long before I turn to stone.” And the guitar riff is an earworm if there ever was one.
A gifted vocalist and guitar player, Risager’s solo just rips–soulful with space between the notes. The band jams with expert horns, bass and drums, electric guitar, keys, and effects—all digging deep on the full-on groove.
Formed in Copenhagen 20 years ago, Thorbjørn Risager and The Tornado are road warriors, touring ten months out of the year, performing across Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia. Risager says, “We built it up from the ground the old-fashioned way.”
A tasty front porch roots tune, “The Way You Make Me Feel” is a feel-good, delightful, acoustic guitar-based number, with slide guitar, horns and backing singers. Risager works his vocal magic on this wonderful groove, revealing he’s just as good at uplifting as he is on the ominous.
Listen “The Way You Make Me Feel”
The album shines with rocking tracks like “Watch The Sun Go Down”, the “Headed for The Stars” and “Time”, each with driving rhythm, slide guitar, backing singers, and hints of Dire Straits, Billy Gibbons and the Rolling Stones.
The rip-roaring “Taking The Good With The Bad” is a fun contemporary boogie worthy of Chuck Berry. You can hear the miles logged in together as a band–the rhythm section is locked down, the entire ensemble knit tight, including the backing singers and horns.
The band includes Thorbjørn Risager (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar), Emil Balsgaard (piano, organ, Wurlitzer, clavinet, farfisa), Joachim Svensmark (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer, piano, strings, drums), Kasper Wagner (alto sax, tenor sax, baritone sax, flutes, clarinet), Hans Nybo (tenor sax, sass clarinet), Peter W Kehl (trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone) Søren Bøjgaard (bass, Moog bass, baritone guitar, synthesizer, piano, percussion) and Martin Seidelin (drums, percussion.)
There’s more fun to be had with ‘Whatever Price,” an up-tempo rhythmic roots music gem about love gone wrong. With interesting chord changes from minor to major keys and lively acoustic slide guitar, this is roots music at its best. You won’t soon forget Risager’s voice.
Closing out Navigation Blues is “Heart Crash,” a haunting and beautiful track, flush with strings, acoustic guitar, and sonic effects. Another standout melody on an album with compelling melodies. This is a band to see live.
Highly recommended.
Order link for Navigation Blues Here
This is another high quality album from Mr. Risager and his band.
These guys are good !