- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw Facebook -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in fRoots issue 352, Oct 2012


FRIGG
Polka V
Sibelius Academy Folk Music Recordings FRIGG00009 (2012)

Frigg’s an unfailingly exciting live band, a world-travelling ecstatic wall of four fiddles in unison and harmony backed by chugging, tight and never thrashed guitar, cittern or mandolin and double bass in big, swingy, all-carrying original tunes at the prow of the Kaustinen sound.
     It’s not always easy to maintain live excitement in the studio, with the possibility for over-caution, but these seven are so experienced, with the total command of their instruments since early childhood, and upbringing in a fiddle-soaked environment, that makes playing often their chosen communication in preference to speaking, and so unstoppable that they unfailingly hit it, be it on stage, a festival session or a studio,
     Not that it’s unrelenting energy; in this set of tunes, as shapely and interesting as any they’ve come up with, there’s plenty of light and shade and focused oases of calm.
     The title track is by fellow Kaustinen fiddler Ville Kangas (a touch of Kangas wit in its subtitle “Displeasement Polka”), but the composition is largely shared among the band, which with the departure of the Norwegian Larsen brothers is now all-Finnish: fiddlers Tero Hyväluoma, Tommi Asplund and siblings Esko and Alina Järvelä, cousin Antti Järvelä on double bass, Tuomas Logrén on guitar and dobro and Petri Prauda cittern, mandolin and occasional bagpipes, joined on the odd track by extra mandolin or guitar, percussion or Kardemimmit’s backing vocals.
     It’s their sixth since their 2002 debut, but no sign of any loss of freshness in playing or writing, and this album is probably their most impressive yet.

     www.frigg.fi


© 2012 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -