{"id":47619,"date":"2015-01-01T08:42:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T13:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=47619"},"modified":"2015-01-01T08:42:47","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T13:42:47","slug":"jorne-lande-trond-holter-dracula-swing-of-death-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2015\/jorne-lande-trond-holter-dracula-swing-of-death-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Jorne Lande & Trond Holter | Dracula: Swing of Death<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist\/News Editor —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"LandeNow here’s an album that caused many a melodic rock fan to do a double-take. It’s not that a collaboration between super-vocalist Jorn Lande and Wig Wam guitarist Trond Holter is unusual, but did anyone really expect that collaboration to be a rock opera\/concept album based on the legend of Dracula? Dracula: Swing of Death<\/em> features Jorn Lande as Dracula and another Norwegian singer \u2013 Lena Borreson \u2013 as Mina, and expands on the story from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.<\/p>\n

While it is a bit hard to wrap your head around the idea a Dracula Melodic Rock opera (especially if you remember Jason Segal’s Dracula puppet opera from the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Jorn’s presence alone means you can’t ignore it. Holter’s approach here was to make this as close to a rock opera as possible while still having songs that could stand on their own. This is a good thing, as the overall story doesn’t quite resonate, and the more theatrical moments \u2013 the title track and \u201cMasquerade Ball\u201d for example \u2013 seem kind of silly.<\/p>\n

Setting aside the rock opera side of things, there are a few songs on Dracula: Swing of Death<\/em> that are better than anything Jorn has done on his last few solo albums. \u201cWalking on Water\u201d is just an amazing melodic metal song, and \u201cRiver of Tears\u201d and \u201cInto the Dark,\u201d both of which feature Jorn and Lena on vocals, are powerful enough to make you wish for a less-conceptual Lande\/Holter team-up in the future. And oddly enough, the instrumental \u201cTrue Love Through Blood\u201d may be the catchiest, most memorable moment on the entire album.<\/p>\n

As a whole, Dracula: Swing of Death<\/em> just doesn’t seem to come together and is hard to take seriously, despite the first-rate musicianship and fantastic vocal performances. It shows flashes of greatness though, and those moments should be enough to make this a worthwhile listen for most Jorn Lande fans and fans of Trond Holter’s work in Wig Wam. <\/p>\n

Genre: Melodic Metal, Melodic Hard Rock<\/p>\n

Band:
\nJorn Lande (v)
\nTrond Holter (g)
\nBernt Jansen (b)
\nPer Morten Bergseth (d)
\nLena Floitmoen Borresen (v)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tHands of Your God
\n2.\tWalking on Water
\n3.\tSwing of Death
\n4.\tMasquerade Ball
\n5.\tSave Me
\n6.\tRiver of Tears
\n7.\tQueen of the Dead
\n8.\tInto the Dark
\n9.\tTrue Love Through Blood
\n10.\tUnder the Gun<\/p>\n

Label: Frontiers Records<\/p>\n

Website: www.facebook.com\/trondholterofficial<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 6.5\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Senior Columnist\/News Editor — Now here’s an album that caused many a melodic rock fan to do a double-take. It’s not that a collaboration between super-vocalist Jorn Lande and Wig Wam […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":47620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12394],"tags":[2317,10289,5081,10470,2847,3439,10288,10471],"class_list":{"0":"post-47619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2015","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-dracula-swing-of-death","10":"tag-frontier-records","11":"tag-jorne-lande","12":"tag-melodic-hard-rock","13":"tag-melodic-metal","14":"tag-trond-holter","15":"tag-wig-wam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}