JØRN LANDE & TROND HOLTER PRESENTS DRACULA Swing Of Death

"Dracula - Swing Of Death" is a project that guitarist Trond Holter (Ex-WigWam, Ex-Dream Police) have been working on for years and the material has matured and developed along the way. Initially Trond did the male vocals himself while Lena Fløitmoen Børresen sang the female parts, but later on Jørn Lande was introduced to the project and ended up singing all male vocal parts. The album is composed as a rock opera based on Bram Strokers book, but it does not have any narrator parts or long instrumental parts as some might expect from a rock opera. Still it has a read tread all the way trough as well as that unmistakeable consistent atmosphere that normally surrounds this kind of albums. Trond Holter has been considered among the best composers within the Norwegian melodic hard rock scene for years, but this time he has truly surpassed himself in that aspect and that goes for the guitar work as well, and there's simply not a single weak or average track on this album. Jørn Landes vocal capabilities are well known, but it's my honest opinion that his contribution on this album is by far his best vocal performance to date and his voice is just perfect for this particular material. I was tempted to comment each track on the album seperately in this review, but since each and one of them are of premium quality I'll leave it with that. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of rock operas and I've heard quite a few of them, still 'Swing Of Death' is the best one I've heard in years and I guess I have to go all the way back to Savatage's 'Dead Winter Dead' or Ayreon's 'The Final Experiment to find something that matches it quality wise. Amazing stuff, and of course an obvious candidate for the album of the year title even though were still in January.

Discography:

'Dracula - Swing Of Death' 2015