Cirkus Prütz – White Jazz – Black Magic (CD)

This combo features quite a few years of Swedish music history. Prütz himself, is bass player Jerry Prütz, formerly of the bluesy hard rock band W.E.T (not the recent melodic rockers) who released a bunch of singles and albums between 1987-2002. Guitarist Franco Santunione has played with bands like Glory Bells, Glory Bell’s Band and Electric Boys, while singer/guitarist is most known for his guitar magic in The Quill. He turns out to be a great singer as well, with a cool low down and half-dirty blues voice. The drums are handled by Per Kohlus. Cirkus Prütz plays classic bluesy hard boogie rock with a southern rock swagger. Shotgun Wedding Blues takes us to southern shuffle country, while Aim To Please has a classic Steve Ray Vaughan swagger to it. The Gary Mooreish bluesy “Blues For Fallen Heroes” is a very nice tribute to two of the band’s former guitarists, who sadly passed away: Mikael Fässberg and Robert “Strängen” Dahlquist. “Hell To Pay” is a kick-ass groovy, riff rocker that really hits home! One of my favorite tracks! “Friends” and “Hats And Strats”, both remind me a bit of early Molly Hatchet and Christian actually has a bit of Danny Joe Brown in his voice, come to think of it. A really nice footstompin’ classic southern style blues rock album!

Janne Stark

Label: Metalville

Year: 2019

Country: Sweden

MATS SANNETORP - Wrong Side Of Town (CD)

This is blues rock guitarist Sannetorp’s third album. Mats is a really good blues rocker with songs in the vein of Bo Wilson, Gary Moore (the blues era), at times with a southern touch. Sannatorp is a Les Paul guy, so no Hendrix comparisons here. The music is quite classic blues rock with dark and quite depressive lyrics, half in English, half in Swedish. If his guitar playing is quite flawless, the vocals are unfortunately not. The voice is decent, but the English pronunciation makes me cringe, I’m afraid. Even though most blues players have a hard time letting anybody else interpret their lyrics, Mats would really benefit in doing so. It’s actually way better when he sings in Swedish, even though it’s all quite straight ahead with no real bluesy feeling in the vocals. As I said, the guitar playing is way more interesting, with a nice fiery tone, like in the excellent instrumental Ain’t Gonna Cry. The Darkest Hour is a really nice heavy rocker, which is only let down by the vocals. This could be really good with only some adjustments. The band is tight and good, the guitar playing kicks ass and the songs are not bad at all.
Janne Stark
Year: 2012
Country: Sweden
Label: private
Link: http://www.sannetorp.com/