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Big Bang
From Acid To Zen
Grand Sport
The best rock and roll album of 2008 comes from Norway.
This may be breaking news for the rest of the world, but in their native country word has been out for some time. Since 2005 Big Bang have not only scored two number one albums (Poetic Terrorism, Too Much Yang), their 2003 album Radio Radio TV Sleep is the biggest-selling live album in Norwegian history.
Written mostly while touring with The Raconteurs, From Acid To Zen not only captures a band at the height of their powers, it demonstrates that when it comes to writing big rock songs with the kind of choruses that lift off into the pop heavens, they are practically peerless. "Early December" sounds like Tom Petty circa Damn The Torpedoes; the punchy "Wild Bird" suggests The Guess Who in their young, tough prime and the soaring falsetto of "Saturn Freeway" is just perfect.
Elsewhere, there's the libidinous blast of "The One"; big chorused and replete with driving arena rock drums, "Savior Soul" sounds like a song that should have ruled the '70s airwaves and the my-parents-are-gone dry hump blues of "My First Time" has no business working, but somehow it does.
A trio led by a former skateboarder (whose dad, by the way, was a member of Oslo's legendary The Undertaker's Circus) and featuring dashes of hard rock, psychedelia, Norwegian folklore and American post punk, Big Bang have been one of the best kept secrets in rock and roll for the last ten years.
Let's not make it eleven. These guys are way too good for that.
—Alex Green
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