Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There could well be Too Many Roads for a person to walk along, so many distractions; so many reasons in which the straight path you choose from A to B means that occasionally that deviation offered you goes untouched, unsighted and the pleasure unheard.

For Danish Blues superstar Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado the road they offer you is a highway to a sort of personal freedom, the chance to imagine the Mississippi flows from the North Sea into the heartland of Hans Christian Anderson, to envisage the Delta sits comfortably lapping at the feet of the Little Mermaid. It is the freedom to believe that nothing is as certain as the wonderful feeling of uncertainty and in Too Many Roads, each moment that you spend listening to the intricate guitar, the heady mix of organ, Wurlitzer, sax, clarinet, trumpet and flugelhorn is a moment in which to appreciate  Thorbjørn Risager’s outrageous talent.

The path he has chosen, the obstacles that are placed before him make him stand out, it is as if Robert Johnson having heard what was to come knew that the genre would be safe in the future and paved a trail ready for Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado. What marks the difference between the passing of time is the acknowledged, that The Blues has become such a fan favourite in the likes of Scandinavia that it can sit comfortably alongside its heavy Folk traditions and its more muscle bound stable mate of Rock and Metal.

Each instrument has its place, it can digress slightly but it always comes back under the control of  Thorbjørn Risager’s almost near precise planning, the saxophones of Kasper Wagner and Hans Nybo for example play with such clarity that the music can’t help but flow as sweet as if made of honey. Tracks such as China Gate, Drowning, the pleasingly captured Through The Tears, the express relief of Rich Man and the clandestine sensuality of If You Want To Leave all merge together to make this not just an album but a personal statement, a super Highway of Blues material and repose.

Too Many Roads is never enough; you just want to carry on driving deep into the culture and have Thorbjørn Risager by your side choosing the music on the stereo.

Ian D. Hall