Hoven Droven — Hippa

Hoven Droven roughly translates into 'spectacle', which was true for the first three albums and the liveshows in particular. Hoven Droven injected their Swedish folk with heavy rock and jazz. While most other Scandinavian crossover bands like Hedningarna and Garmarna focused on a dark atmosphere and electronics, Hoven Droven was very organic. Big drums and heavy guitars combined with the folky violin and the jazzy saxophone made Hoven Droven stand out more as a partyband.

On Hippa they flip the script though: they left the heavy guitars and big drums out this time. This record is more 'small' sounding and more subtle. A lot of the material is nevertheless very rhythmic and groovy. Kjell-Erik's violin and Jens' saxophone are beautiful and the atmosphere on this album is more like a cosy evening by the fireplace rather than the explosive liveshow that came to mind with the other albums. I don't think it's a bad thing, I think that their songwriting and improvisational capacities stand tall and they don't [need] the big sound to spice it up.

It's not like all rock is out of the window: a song like Malört still has a strong rockfeeling, but Bosse uses less distortion on his guitar and Björn acts more like a percussionist than a drummer. The beautiful ballad Gudrun's Vals makes me feel warm and snug. The intricate timing, which is typical for Swedish folkmusic, in Gart Sjouf makes that a very nice tune too. Impossible with a clicktrack, and as the liner notes state: "no autotuner was used in the recording of this album!"

The enhanced part of the CD features a bio, two videoclips and a impression of the time in the studio. There are also a bunch of MP3's on it, most of them live. The version of Jämtlandssångvalsen (which was already one of my favorite songs) is great.

Overall I think it's a lovely album and I hope they will tour again under better (read: longer) circumstances than the last time I saw them. I'm sure the heavy stuff still will be present in the liveshow.