The Blue Van

The Blue Van will definitely blow the doors off for some people. They’re young, rock hard, and have all the right influences. They mostly kick out the jams, but they take breaks for psychedelics and ballads and, impressively, never lose momentum or bloat their album with filler. The Blue Van lay legitimate claim to a family tree that includes Cream, The Small Faces and The Kinks, and if they were one of a kind -- or even just an endangered species helping to resuscitate the national treasure that is raspy, big-riffed rock and roll -- they’d be one of the most exciting bands in all of music. But given the glut of similar “retro rock” bands -- authentic, entertaining, boisterous and yet utterly predictable and numbingly safe -- about the highest praise The Blue Van merits is that they’re much better at Jet’s game than Jet.

While their potential is limited by their imitative sound, The Blue Van do what they do very well. Wisely, they embrace the fact that other bands have already planted their flags on this soil (they address this directly with a Beatles homage at the beginning of the psychedelic instrumental “The Bluverture”). No song is left neglected hook-wise, and the individual components of The Blue Van are all sturdy. Steffen Westmark pouts and howls with feeling, and Søren Christensen spruces up the arrangements with some lively organ playing. Best of all is Per Jørgensen, who is a beast behind the drum kit, rampaging even on the album’s pair of slower tracks. - Adam McKibbin