This past week, I traveled to Sweden for the first and hopefully not the last time, and accordingly, I put forth the question in the Obelisk Facebook group wondering what were people’s picks for the best Swedish heavy rock album ever. Siena Root‘s 2004 debut, A New Day Dawning, was floated among many, many others, and as it had been a while, it seemed like a prime opportunity for a revisit.

Issued through Rage of Achilles and Nasoni Records, the 13-track/68-minute A New Day Dawning followed about half a decade’s worth of demos and EPs, and very much benefits from the time the four-piece at that point put into building their sound. It is not a minor undertaking now — and somehow putting out a debut 2LP in 2004, well before the resurgence of vinyl as the predominant format for heavy rock, seems especially bold — but it is resoundingly cohesive across its span, and each of its four sides presents something of a different look from Siena Root stylistically. At the time, the band was comprised of vocalist/organist Oskar Lundström, guitarist/vocalist KG West, and the rhythm section of bassist/vocalist Sam Riffer and drummer/vocalist Love H. Forsberg, the latter two of whom remain the founding principals of the group today.

Like much of what was happening in Sweden at the time, Siena Root were informed by the classic heavy rock of the 1970s, and A New Day Dawning bears that out at various points, whether it’s the Mk. II Deep Purple-style groove-hump of “What Can I Do” or the flute-laced jam so gracefully emphasizing the pastoral and telling of future arrangement adventures to come in closer “Into the Woods.” The beginning of Sweden’s retro movement is commonly credited to the band Norrsken, whose members went on to form bands like Witchcraft — who also debuted in 2004 — and Graveyard, but Siena Root were concurrent at least to the wave that took hold and continues to flourish as its own vintage-minded niche. To Siena Root‘s credit, however, A New Day Dawning does not sacrifice audio fidelity for aesthetic. The production on these songs is organic, to be sure, and I don’t know whether it was done live, to tape, etc., or any of those other things that dogwhistle a retro mindset — Per Ängkvist engineered, Christofer Stannow mastered — but the tones they conjure are full as well as warm, and from the fade-in of opener “Coming Home” onward, they make it clear to the listener that it’s okay to trust where the band are leading. You’re in good hands from the outset, and for the duration.

“Coming Home” is an energetic, classic-vibing and subtly complex roller with boogie intentions and a bluesy spirit that comes to be what Siena Root most lean toward on side A. Followed by the hooky shuffle “Just Another Day,” the quick-but-funky “Shine” and the all-in blues rocker “Fever,” it’s a fluid and welcoming start to the record, immediately dynamic, immediately engaging on a level of songwriting and performance. Their sound would grow more expansive with this lineup in time — and as noted, A New Day Dawning provides hints of that later on — but the leadoff stretch is all about bringing the audience in, and as side B launches with “Above the Trees” and the aforementioned, organ-emphasized “What Can I Do,” the record cleverly shifts from the blues to a more definitively ’70s-inspired take, with the catchy start-stops of “Little Man” and the mostly mellow “Roots” underlining the point. To this day, Siena Root call themselves ‘roots rock.’ Listening again to the actual roots of the band, it’s hard to argue.

As A New Day Dawning works toward side D’s more extended closing duo — “Rasayana” (9:06) and “Into the Woods” (8:19) — the loosely proggy jammer “Trippin'” and the suitably molten follow-up “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” with its drum solo and all, begin that process of expansion. The organ in the latter makes it a highlight if the guitar already didn’t, and as they transition into the shorter, touch-ground-early-then-take-off “Words,” the depth of consideration on the part of the band in structuring the record becomes clearer. Each side has not only its own personality, but its own progression as well, and after casting more ethereal vibes in “Trippin'” and “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” “Words” gives an on-stage-circa-1974 culmination to that linear voyage, allowing “Rasayana” and “Into the Woods” to flourish almost as an entity unto themselves.

The former, “Rasayana,” finds West beginning what would become a lifetime’s exploration of South Asian classical music on veena and Greek tzouras, while Riffer adds percussion to his double-bass and sintir. They resolve ultimately in a combination of rock and folk styles, trading back and forth and bringing the ideas together throughout before ending with a quick da-dum that almost has one’s ears hearing “War Pigs” hi-hat in the fadeout. “Into the Woods,” with the already-noted flute, a guest appearance by Anna Sandström, as well as hurdy-gurdy credited to Tängman starts at a slower nod and works into a vital shuffle by its halfway point, but mellows out again for a grand and abidingly natural-sounding finish. It’s not overdone, it’s not underdone, and its sweep at the end — in hindsight — feels like it’s carrying you into what was then the band’s own bright future.

Just yesterday, I posted news of the Feb. 24 release date of Siena Root‘s upcoming eighth album, Revelation (info here), through Atomic Fire Records. The lineup is different, as noted, with Forsberg and Riffer now joined by vocalist/keyboardist Zubaida Solid and guitarist Johan Borgström as veterans of the scene they helped to create, but much of the soul that one finds so resonant in A New Day Dawning — never mind the boogie — remains in the band to this day. From this first (2)LP, they went on to offer a stretch of classics in their own right in 2006’s Kaleidoscope (discussed here), 2008’s Far From the Sun and 2009’s Different Realities (discussed here), and their sound has continued to grow despite personnel shifts and a generation’s worth of acts digging into retroism as a stylistic movement. One only looks forward to what’s to come, and looking back across this initial offering, it’s been a hell of a day up to now.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Got back on Monday from the aforementioned Sweden trip, have been sick since Tuesday. Wednesday I had a follow-up with my neurologist to discuss what I’ve come to playfully call my abby-normal brain, and she put me on Adderall in addition to Wellbutrin and told me to take a small fortune’s worth of vitamins and go swimming if I want to, well, get old, I guess. Fair enough. Gonna wait for the snot to stop leaking out of my face before I hit the pool. Might be a few more days.

Tough week with/for the kid, who’s ready in his bones for the holiday break. I can’t even argue.

I’m going to see Sunn O))) on Saturday in Brooklyn with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Should be interesting, and I managed to get a photo pass, so will review as well. Beyond that, next week is clear to give me time to work in the Best of 2022 post, which I hope to have done either Wednesday or Thursday. To give you some hint of where I’m at with it, my list isn’t actually done yet. So let’s say probably Thursday it’ll go up.

Also need to do a Gimme Metal playlist for next Friday, so that’s where I’m headed for the rest of today, then grocery shopping and hopefully a bit of fuckoff time, which I could very much use after a busy few weeks. I tend to catch my breath when I can. That’s of course harder to do when you can’t breathe through your nose, but one endeavors just the same.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I have a follow-up with my orthopedic surgeon about my knee this morning, but I don’t expect much exciting to come out of it. I’m still healing, still sore at the end of the day from various bendings and so on, but I think I’m getting to where I need to be. It might just hurt now. Like, until I eventually get my knees replaced — which I fully expect I’ll have to do at some point; my mother is headed that way now — and then probably for the rest of my life after that. Which I hear won’t be that long if I don’t get like $200 worth of vitamins in my body stat. Life is strange and mostly stupid. Periodically glorious.

Which I suppose is what makes the rest worth it.

Agaun, great and safe weekend. Stay warm and hydrated, and I’ll have that year-end stuff up as soon as possible, to be followed in short order by a Quarterly Review with 100 more records covered. So there.

FRM.

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