Album review : ART NATION – Re-Revolution

Frontiers [Release date : 16.05.25]

Sweden’s Art Nation are getting considerable push from the Frontiers Music label.

This month we get a replay of their first rodeo, Revolution (2015), coming hard on the heels of last month’s impressive new album, The Ascendance. And we get a handful of bonus tracks, added to sweeten the deal.

The band get mentioned in the same sentence as HEAT, WET and Treat, but they fight their own fight, thanks to Carl Tuden’s steady percussive thump, Alexander Strandell’s anchoring vocals and axeman Christoffer Borg, who adds some serious sonic sparkle to every track.

Jacob Hansen’s razor sharp production and imaginative arrangements are gloriously reminiscent of Melodic Rock’s most hypnotic moments.

And yet, the album something of a mixed bag, with big anthemic choruses spun out of simple steps, working very effectively on ‘Don’t Wait For Salvation’ (good advice) and ‘Start A Fire’.

Then, elsewhere, ‘All The Way’ and ‘Number One’ strain to be killer cuts but just don’t possess enough melodic rock juice to make it.

And the album had started out so well. Strandell’s voice swoops and soars as Borg’s axe zooms in and out of orbit on ‘I Need You To Understand’, and equally on the helter skelter rush of ‘I Want Out’, Borg again cranking the axe up to incendiary levels.

‘3000 Beats’ and ‘Movin On’ might remind you of TNT’s finest moments. Borg echoes Ronnie Le Tekro’s intuitive axework, sometimes big and bold, at others scaled down and intimate, standing back when the chorus comes powering through.

Strandell’s piano accompaniment on the immaculately judged two hander ballad, ‘Look To The Sky’, takes an increasingly leading role as the song progresses, bravely resisting any temptation to go full kitchen sink.

It’s a classy highpoint on an occasionally uneven album. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 16 June 2025

LOVE NOR MONEY Blood Will Tell (Golden Robot Records)
DISCIPLES OF VERITY Break The Cycle (TLG/Zoid)
BLACKLIST UNION Up In Smoke (BLU Records)
ANDY AND THE ROCKETS Cyanide (Valley Music Delapop)
ARCHERS Crooked Smile (SBG Records)
ZETRA So (Nuclear Blast)
HOLLOW SOULS Shotgun (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 16 June 2025

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

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