Hedvig Mollestad is a Norwegian jazz guitarist, composer and vocalist from Alesund. She is famous for her collaborations with the likes of The Cumshots, Jon Eberson and Jarle Bernhoft, as well as being the leader of The Hedvig Mollestad Trio, where she handles guitar and vocals alongside Ellen Brekken (Bass) and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad (drums). Tempest Revisited is the follow up to her critically acclaimed debut solo album, Ekhidna, and features Bjørnstad on drums, as well as Martin Myhre, Peter Eric Vergeni and Karl Nyberg on sax, Martin Eberson on keys and synth and finally Trond Franes on bass duties.  The album is the studio recording of a piece originally performed at Parken Kulturhus in Alesund in 2018 as a commission to celebrate their 20th anniversary and can be seen as a follow up to Arne Nordheim’s Tempest, parts of which were performed at the opening of Parken in 1998.

What we have in Tempest Revisited are five tracks of quality progressive Avant Garde jazz stretched across forty-one minutes. Opener "Sun on A Dark Sky" gets things underway, building slowly, at first sparse and atmospheric before eventually peaking as a heady, languid, fluid work of great beauty. The track eventually lifts the tempo and intensity levels up a couple of notches for an almost prog rock finish. "Winds Approaching" follows in a similar vein mixing prog rock and jazz influences to great effect. The track features some lovely sounding lead breaks on both sax and keys that give the whole track a 1970s vibe, before finishing in frantic style. "Kittiwakes in Gusts" settles into a groove quite quickly, funky and loose sounding, I can’t help but draw comparisons with the work of Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius at certain points, although it remains a little harder sounding than either of those artists. "418 (Stairs in Storms)" is up next, and at over 11 minutes it is the album’s centrepiece. An ambient, atmospheric jazz masterclass in subtlety that oozes class and feels somewhat stripped back in terms of performances, gone are the spiralling sax solos and 70s funk keyboard runs. They are not required here, this for me is the sign of an outstanding set of musicians, they know when things need to be kept simple and when to kick things up a notch. "High Hair" is the album closer and features a hard rock style guitar riff that most doom bands would be proud of. The track is divided up almost as a traditional verse/chorus style song, but without the vocals. During the verse sections the album’s prog leanings are there for all to see, whilst the chorus is all about that glorious riff. The whole thing is peppered with some more outstanding playing from the whole band.

Overall, Tempest Revisited is a remarkable blast through a variety of different musical styles from ambient jazz all the way up to intense, riff-laden rock n roll and everything in between. The musicians are superb across the board and as mentioned they really understand exactly what is required of them at each juncture. If you view this album as a follow up to Nordheim’s Tempest, then it’s more than worthy of that status, however, if you view it on its own merits then it’s a powerful, subtle, and intense masterpiece of progressive jazz.