LALLA HANSSON – Complete 70s albums

 Upp till Ragvaldsträsk (Columbia, 1971)
Tur & retur (EMI, 1973)
Fångat i flykten (EMI, 1976)
Enstaka spår! (EMI, 1978)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: -

Featured in the ”100 other artists to check out” list in ”The Encyclopedia Of Swedish Progressive Music”, and another odd inclusion. Lalla Hansson was in 60s band Fabulous Four who did a couple of great freakbeat tracks, but as a solo artist, Hansson went for a more country tinged soft rock style. It's pretty twee stuff but I kind of like some of what he did, which is a decidedly unhip thing to say. He relied heavily on covers, especially on his first two albums, but his Swedish translations are often very good – he had a real knack for transposing mostly American songs to a Swedish setting. Which of course is competely lost on non-Swedish listeners, and with very little progg involved here, there's not much to recommend here in that context.

Upp till Ragvaldsträsk full album playlist
Tur & retur full album playlist
Fångat i flykten full album playlist
Enstaka spår! full album playlist

NAILBAND – The Most Remarkable Nailband (Columbia, 1972)

English vocals

International relevance: *

Stylistically speaking, this is a somewhat parenthetical inclusion, but seven of the songs on "The Most Remarkable Nailband" were written by Lasse Tennander, either on his own or together with Nailband main man Peter Lundblad. (Lundblad also appears on Tennander's 1972 debut album ”Lars Vegas”.) The album – the only one released under the Nailband banner – is far from as remarkable as the title suggest, but it's an OK effort if you're into early 70's West Coast stuff and singer/songwriter pop. Parts of it are somewhat similar to the very first few and unjustly and pettily slagged albums by Tomas Ledin. Two songs in particular are fine, album opener ”Lady of Lore” with a not too overt strain of turn-of-the-decade Moody Blues, and ”Dreamer” that wears its David Crosby influence on its sleeve and features some nice dreamy guitar. (Not a far-fetched reference as the album also includes a cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Ohio", however not particularly memorable.)

As a sidenote, the rumour (supported by a Discogs entry) that there's a monochrome variation of the album cover seems entirely erroneous, originating from a cover scan posted on the Swedish Musikon/Progg.se website that had the bad habit of publishing brown & white pictures of record covers. 

Full album

LIFE – Life (Columbia, 1970)

Swedish vocals [Swedish edition], 

English vocals [export edition], instrumental
International relevance: ***

Life's only album was released in two versions, one with Swedish vocals aimed at the domestic market, and one with English vocals intended for export. However, the export edition never reached outside Sweden but is still one of the rarest progg albums ever with only 800 copies made. Both versions have been reissued, the English version with bonus tracks.

I personally prefer the English variant of the album because the vocals, oddly enough, sound better than on its domestic counterpart. But the vocals in general are the weakest point here. Certainly not as good as Anders Nordh's guitar playing.

”Life” isn't as good as its reputation. ”En bit av evigheten/Sailing in the Sunshine” is a fine slice of heavy Sweden, but the album is extremely uneven, constantly losing momentum due to several short but pointless instrumental bits between the proper tracks. And string laden ballads like the ”Jag stod ensam på min väg/Nobody Was There to Love Me” and ”En gång i tiden/Once Upon a Time” almost sound like something David Bowie pulled out of Elton John's wastebasket.

Yes, ”Life” is a classic, and it's reasonable to mention it along with November since both bands were first generation Swedish heavy rockers, but history is history and music is music, and this time history is better.

Full album playlist (Swedish version)
Full album playlist with bonus tracks (English version)