I've noted before that good Americana music springs up in the damnedest places, and you can't get much farther a field than an Arctic mining town named Kiruna, in Sweden. Dig out your atlas, and you'll see what I mean. Often times bands from non-English speaking cultures experience difficulty translating their songs into meaningful English, but I'm very happy to report that that's not the case here.
Initially I had difficulty digesting the fact that the Willy Clay Band aren't North American, they've got such a wonderful grip on the genre. The songs and vocals of Reine Tuoremma, acoustic guitar, harmonica, Bjorn Pettersson, bass, and Tony Bjorkenvall, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, are as pure country as it gets, (sorry about the lack of accents, guys; can't get the keyboard to do them), and the complement of Fredrik Elenius' percussive skills and Orjan Maki, on electric guitar, lap steel and dobro, makes Rebecca Drive a very fine debut CD indeed.
Production duties were handled by the redoubtable Will Kimbrough in Nashville last January, and, rumour has it that they also were invited to play The Basement at the Americana Music Conference. Pick the best tunes? Sorry, no can do; they're all winners here.
This is one band that has come out of the starting gate with the pedal to the metal, and they warrant your attention; definitely Top Ten; in the runnin's for CD of the Year; believe me on this one. -- Don Grant
This review and many other appear on the excellent Freight Train Boogie website .
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