Jackie Leven – Lovers At The Gun Club (Cooking Vinyl/Bonnier Amigo)

This review in Bluesnews (no. 56, September 2008), the magazine of the Norsk Bluesunion, calls Leven the “Scottish friend of Norway” – “with a positive sign” – a welcome guest at many clubs in Norway. He returns in November with his guitar, his often untidy and holey shirts, and a voice that “must put even God up above in a good mood”. The new album will not be remembered as one of his finest, the review says, but it is more than good enough and indispensable for his many followers.

Gone are the Americana and country beats one could hear on Elegy For Johnny Cash and the blues nerve that surfaced on a couple of strong tracks on Oh What A Blow That Phantom Dealt Me. What you hear is a more back-to-basics troubadour and Celtic songwriter: slowly winding ballads like “The Innocent Railway”, the troubadour’s “lightly ingenious” observations of comic everyday situations in the shambling ballad style of “Fareham Confidential”, and light, rolling folk/boogie moments like “Head Full Of War”. “Bra hele veien” – good all the way – but perhaps not particularly exciting or as magical as much of what Jackie has done before.

Johnny Dowd, the “Americana brimstone preacher”, turns up once more with his strong-charactered voice; the title track, which he colours most, is perhaps the only song likely to be carried forward onto later Leven compilations. Dowd also appears on the ambitious, jazz-tinged “The Dent In The Fender And The Wheel Of Fate”, a long, charismatic journey through Americana land unlike anything Leven has done before. Leven sings like Aaron Neville in places. Personally the critic is happiest with the emotional and beautiful moments such as “My Old Home”, since nobody sings what he calls white soul with that floating Celtic sound as beautifully as Leven. The album ends with the charming acoustic “Olivier Blues”. The review closes: “Lovers At The Gun Club. Er du en av dem?” (“Are you one of them?”).