A sneaking suspicion that a flood of appreciative word on the just released Pilgrim will seep out is hard to avoid.
There's something about the brooding starkness and sit-up-bolt-upright directness to what these intrepid Gardeners recording in an Oslo studio have rustled up. The Norwegians brush away some of the more vaporous tendencies of Nordic jazz and endow their approach instead with a lot more heart and soul than what some of their more airier acolytes are able to achieve. There's Trygve Seim-like sax, crisp riffery, heart-on-sleeve soloing and ringingly pristine double bass and drum work decorated with pin-point accuracy in the sonic mix. You can count on that especially the way the percussion is captured on a tune such as 'Aisha.'
Tunes by Mathias Hagen dart around a carefully shaped matching set of sonorous tonalities. And there's plenty of control, seriousness and momentousness all bound up in one on 'Warsong'. The extra percussion on tracks like 'Aisha' by co-producer Arne Martin Nybo is welcome as is the chunky baritone sax of Henrik Büller fattening the sound on 'West.'
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