Woodlands (Trail Records 012, 2012)
The beautifully packaged Woodlands CD gives you a good idea of what Barrett Elmore’s music is going to sound like. Barrett Elmore is a superb Swedish group that has absorbed the best essence of early space rock and psychedelia.
The vocals, musical instruments and even the arrangements sound like they came out of the late 1960s or early 1970s. However, the recording is modern and it’s refreshing to listen to this type of music recorded with today’s technology.
Although Barrett Elmore have been compared to early Pink Floyd, I see them more as the hybrid grandchild of Pink Floyd and The Doors. The band creates Pink Floyd-style dreamy and hypnotic early progressive space rock pieces combined with Jim Morrison-type male vocals, bluesy jams and hippy era folk-rock female vocals, inspired by the mysterious Nordic woods.
Barrett Elmore was formed in 2008 in Sweden. The band originally started out as a trio that performed instrumental blues. Soon they progressed on to psychedelic and psychedelic-inspired music. When vocalist Mikaela Eriksson joined the band, Barrett Elmore originated the sound and style revealed in their music today.
The line-up includes Claes Mikael Svensson on drums, percussion, vocals; Max Karlstrom on bass, vocals, organ, harmonica, synthesizers; Mikaela Eriksson on vocals; and William Friman on guitar, piano, and organ.
Woodlands is a significant album of trance-like exploratory psychedelic rock by one of the new masters in the genre.
Listen to samples and buy MP3s
Buy the CD.