Jorn – Spirit Black

After “The Duke” in 2006 Jorn established a tradition to release a full length studio album every year, and faithful to his rendezvous with his fans, here we have his latest effort “Spirit Black”.

Given that he has found a recipe that yields steadily good albums, there is not much changed since his previous release “Lonely Are The Brave”. As a part of this, he worked again with Tommy Hansen at Jailhouse Studios to retain his signature sound. Good, solid rock is what you would expect and exactly this is what you get.

The whole album runs mostly in medium speeds, and has a lot of references in the 80s hard rock and metal scene. The short drum based intro gets you into the slow and groovy “Spirit Black”, which along with “Below” (am I the only one that finds a Dio influence in this?) move in pretty classical forms. The next four songs, starting with the darker “Road Of The Cross” are the best of the album in my opinion. Jorn unfolds all of his vocal talents with a very pleasing result. The Whitesnake-like “Burn Your Flame” speeds the things up a little and leads to the last original track of the album “World Gone Mad” which features some great vocal melodies and excellent guitar work as is the case with the previous tracks. The final track of “Spirit Black” is a cover to Tarja Turunen’s “I Walk Alone”. Considering the fact that Jorn got us used in him covering songs, the only surprise here is the choice of such a recent song.

I have one major objection about this album and that is the in the length of it. Just 36 minutes excluding the cover. I just hope he is going to make up for the short running time with a new album soon.