The old morphs into the new with THE RIVER, a band that was formed in 2024 by Frederik Zäll (vocals, guitar, piano) and Joacim Brunnberg (drums, percussion), who were also previously the movers and shakers behind the band Eskobar and who were on the lookout for a vehicle that offered them the opportunity to create something rawer, freer and with the additional benefit of being completely on their own terms.
Their debut live show was as recently as the end of March.
The result is the debut 10-track album ‘And the Storm’ from which I found it difficult to select the best sample track, there are so many of them.
I was attracted to several of them for varying reasons including ‘Drive Bye’ and ‘I guess now I’m the King’ for the tenuous reason that both would fit with something connected to an ‘Escobar’ if you’ll pardon the intentional misspelling and lousy joke.
For a duo they make one hell of a noise, you’d think there was an army of them and unlike some other rock duos and despite the ‘rawer’ feel they sought, whatever style they are playing in there is often a cinematic, especially road trip movie, feel to it.
Those styles encompass everything from soft to hard rock to let’s call it Americana rock and even a Swedish variation on Britpop, which isn’t something they mention in their press release but is something I hear in several of the tracks.
They certainly know their way around their instruments and I’d bet this week’s wages that they can replicate these songs live under just about any circumstances.
And Frederik’s vocal is especially intriguing with shades of everyone from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie van Sant to Crash Test Dummies’ Brad Roberts seemingly making an appearance at one time or another.
There’s melody-a-plenty, strong hooks, unexpected riffs, challenging one-to-one lyricism as if they’re telling you a story in the pub, and flowing high level composition in every track.
I was going to pick the barnstorming opener and first single, ‘The River Runs’ as the sample track but eventually opted for the rock-balladic closer, ‘I guess now that I’m the King’, for its poignant piano, elegant guitar break and teasing lyrics that could be interpreted as anything from an anti-war song to James Bond’s last stand.
I’m conscious that variations on ‘River’ are commonplace in popular music artist and band names. We’ve had Sweden’s River (recently) and Chase Riversin NMC, along with Norway’s I See Rivers but this duo flows all the way to the ‘Must See’, if you’ll pardon the pun!
In other guises they’ve been on stages around the world for decades and it shows in a very high quality debut release.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
Find them on:
Website: https://www.theriver.se/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-River/61556802929405/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_river_swe/
