In these crazy, dark, fucked up times, many, if not all, music fans know that one thing is our saving grace in all of this: music.\u00a0 Now more than ever, music is my companion, my escape, and my solace.\u00a0 Listening to music and letting it take me someplace reminds me of how strong a tool music was in my younger years.\u00a0 The melodic, uplifting, goosebump-inducing sounds of great hard rock songs with an incredible singer was the music of my choice, and it was that music that gave me some sunshine in those dark times.\u00a0 On this particular day, that artist is Jorn Lande, and the album is Heavy Rock Radio II.<\/p>\n
On his Heavy Rock Radio I album, Jorn took on songs such as Kate Bush\u2019s \u201cRunning Up that Hill,\u201d Journey\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Believing,\u201d and Foreigner\u2019s \u201cRev on the Red Line.\u201d\u00a0 Jorn\u2019s take on all of these songs was outstanding, and this time around with Heavy Rock Radio II, he kicks it up a notch.<\/p>\n
Heavy Rock Radio II is like a jukebox of good times and memories put to melodic hard rock music that makes me wish that a lot of these songs would have sounded like this in the first place.\u00a0 Kicking things off with \u201cLonely Nights\u201d by Bryan Adams was outstanding.\u00a0 This song is so fucking good that it made me go back and listen to the original.\u00a0 While I didn\u2019t love it, I loved Jorns take on it so much more.\u00a0 \u201cNew York Minute\u201d by Don Henley actually rocked the fuck out, which is something Henley himself was never capable of doing, and the classic oldie \u201cNeedles and Pins\u201d was so much fun that it got a repeat listen from me.<\/p>\n
Jorn sure does love him some for Foreigner because, on Heavy Rock Radio II, he revisits the track \u201cNight Life\u201d and kills it.\u00a0 The highlight of the album for me was his cover of Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cQuinn the Eskimo.\u201d\u00a0 Good fucking god, I was both laughing and loving it at the same time.\u00a0 It is so fucking over the top, and I love it.\u00a0 I would love to hear what Dylan\u2019s take on this classic would be.\u00a0 Dylan is such an odd, eccentric artist that something tells me that the only thing he would not like about it is the fact that he didn\u2019t play on it.<\/p>\n
Jorn once again has taken a handful of songs and turned them into his own songs.\u00a0 Jorn sings every one of these songs with so much passion and emotion one would swear he wrote these songs.\u00a0 I am not a Foreigner fan, and I sure as fuck am not a fan of Don Henley, but Jorn managed to take these songs and manipulate them into something that struck a chord with me.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t stop smiling while listening to this collection, and it was just what I needed to shake away the blues and anxiety of the world outside.\u00a0 Heavy Rock Radio II is the good time album we need right now, and that\u2019s all I have to say about that.<\/p>\n
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Lonely Nights (Bryan Adams cover)<\/p>\n
Winning (Russ Ballard cover)<\/p>\n
New York Minute (Don Henley cover)<\/p>\n
Needles and Pins (The Searchers cover)<\/p>\n
Love (Santana cover)<\/p>\n
I Do Believe in You (Pages cover)<\/p>\n
Nightlife (Foreigner cover)<\/p>\n
Bad Attitude (Deep Purple cover)<\/p>\n
Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band cover)<\/p>\n
Mystery (Dio cover)<\/p>\n
The Rhythm of the Heat (Peter Gabriel cover)<\/p>\n