Inge Bremnes at Studio 2 in Liverpool. June 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 7/10

There is a well beaten path that has emerged once more between the fiords of Norway and the port of Liverpool. It has come back to life in recent years as the city opens its arms with anticipation at the thought of more good music finding its way to the venues of the undoubted capital of music culture in the U.K.

There are many big footsteps in which to fill but Inge Bremnes seems to have covered the bases as he performed a set of songs in English (tracks such as Stop Motion, Over The Moon, the superb Cold and Screaming Stronger) as well as a couple of tracks in his own seductive language.

It was in the songs that were sung in Inge Bremnes’ own native Norwegian which really captured the essence of the band’s set. The thought in the audiences mind of a winter wonderland, as they played the superb Sne (Snow) and Kanskje (Maybe), of a nation that the U.K. has much in common with, even it doesn’t realise it or admit it half the time and of a singer/songwriter who fills his lungs with the passion of a couple of thousand years of Nordic history. The lyrics he sings flood the defences of the casual onlooker until they are half submerged in the flow of a nature and the sense of a community that takes pride in its place in the world.

Joining Inge Bremnes on stage were Eirik Hansen on guitar, Øystein Myrvoll on keyboards, Erlend Bredal Olsen on bass and the superb Andreas Voie on drums, all of them swaying in time to a beat that was both hypnotic and alluring and yet had enough about it to be delving into the realms of the Progressive Rock arena. Tantalisingly beautiful, entrancing in places and fully loaded as Norwegian/Nordic music should be.

The music which was placed firmly into the Spoken English bracket was just as good but didn’t quite have the same ethereal ideal as its Nordic counterpart. In the end that doesn’t matter, what matters is that like so many great Norwegian musicians that have crossed the North Sea in search of spreading their lyrical ability to the birthplace of British pop culture, Inge Bremnes has found a home in which that talent can spread out and be comfortable, it is good stuff to take in and enjoy.

Ian D. Hall