SECOND SUN
“ELANDES ELANDE”
Album Review by Dark Juan

10/10

Second Sun are: Fucking cosmic, man! Even if their own Facebook page doesn’t give us their surnames or what instruments they play…

Jakob
Marcus
David
Adam

Who would have thought that Swedish people could be so very groovy? Alright, there’s Abba, but they were popmeisters and therefore low on the groove factor. For your information groovy equates with psychedelic, which means fucking phaser wah and fuzz phaser pedals, lashings of wah wah, tube screamer amps and dirty Hammond organ and Moogs and enough psilocybe to flatten a herd of people from Haight-Ashbury before giving them all an MKULTRA sized dose of LSD for dessert and watching the strange dancing and bizarre ramblings of horrifically stoned hippies from your mighty throne of drug lordship and psychedelic mastery. Which, in the sewer that passes for my imagination, is exactly what Second Sun do during their patchouli scented gigs. This review is brought to you by Brewdog Punk IPA, Demon 12% biere blonde, Pietra chestnut beer and a cheeky little ambree from La Goudale and the hangover I will be enjoying tomorrow. That will be why I am making little sense. Not that I care. I’m a libertine, remember? And for some bizarre reason, you lot keep reading the absolute nonsense I spew out under the influence of alcohol.

Yes, my dear friends and acolytes, we have stumbled across the mother lode of Swedish groovy. The groove quotient is off the scale. We are at Groovecon 1. There is going to be an imminent explosion, and everyone in the blast radius is going to get completely soaked with groove. It’s the universe’s grooviest event horizon. It’s like how much groovy can you get? The answer is none. None more groovy. The main difficulty I have with this long player from Second Sun, is that it is a Swedish language record and I cannot understand a fucking word of it. German I can normally work out, French I’m hopeless at because it is such an arse-backward language (why is a black cat a chat noir? A cat black? Ridiculous. Remind me why I moved here again…) and even Icelandic I can pick a word or two up from. But Swedish? Not a chance. It’s also such a shame that the language reminds me of the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. Where’s that chicken? Anyway, as usual I have wasted the best part of a page talking absolute bollocks. This is quite simply a tremendous album, chock full of good things. Unless you’re into ultra heavy stuff in which case you’ll find the melody and the tunesmithing frankly offensive. However, if you like Cream, Coven, Hendrix, early Hawkwind and the like then you are going to fall in love with Second Sun as they are quite simply flares and denim clad trad metal magnificence. This record sounds like beers with all your friends at your favourite festival with the sun shining, the metal playing loud and good times being had by all. They sure know how to write the most luxuriant rock and roll songs and the singing is just sublime. It is a rare and precious thing this, every single song on here can be deservedly called a classic and it is one of the most complete records I have ever heard. Second Sun explore their chosen style with a kind of carefree abandon that marks the truly great out from the mere journeymen of rock and roll, and they do it with such a sense of style, poise and swagger it makes me want to weep tears of metal joy and have all their babies, even though I am incapable of gestating a foetus as I am a man. On the famed Dark Juan battle jacket, Second Sun’s patch sits between Blackwulf, Lucifer, Friendship and Coven. I haven’t heard this great a record since my last 10/10 review. Which was Graham Bonnet. With the utterly, utterly beguiling and perfect rare and radiant beauty that is Beth-Ami Heavenstone. Sigh……. FOCUS, DARK JUAN!!! THERE ARE SOULS TO CORRUPT AND TO ENCOURAGE TO SPEND ALL THEIR MONEY ON SECOND SUN PRODUCTS!

I can find nothing I dislike about this record. The bass is a thundering great beast, the drums powerful and organic, the guitar work off the scale, the singing marvellous and the keyboards an integral and essential part of the sound and the whole record is a meisterwerk of groove. It’s everything that was good about classic rock and metal, filtered, distilled and reworked into something amazing and timeless and compelling and listenable and superb and and and….. look, just buy the fucking record OK?

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is feeling mightily groovy indeed and Mrs. Dark Juan is looking scared and talking about sleeping in a separate bedroom. With a lock on the door. Second Sun are awarded a magic mushroomly groovy 10/10 for this absolutely killer record.

PS: I’ve been super nice to you lot, Second Sun. Can I have a patch please?

TRACKLIST: Be aware, the song titles are Swedish, but I have an English keyboard so there are accents and little circles over the letter A missing. I would apologise, but I’m not going to…

Vems Fel (Nope. Not a clue.)
Forneka Allt (That second word could be Welsh. Have they tricked me?)
Noll Respekt (A monkey could work out this one…)
Sang Till En Slagen Kanmpe (But not this.)
Enda Sunda Manniskan I Vanrlden (Or this. This is arcane, man.)
Ingen Tid Fur Allting (Bah. I’m shit at languages.)
Du Ska Se Att Det Blir Sanmre (They are just hitting the keyboard now. These are not words!)
Det Betyder Allt (There’s that sneaky Welsh word again.)
Panikangestattack (Tank attack? Panic attack? Tactical nuclear attack?)
Elandes Elande (Is this song about a large species of deer?)

https://www.facebook.com/Secondsunswe/

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