Janne Westerlund – Talvikaravaani LP - The edges of the cover have very light wear from shipping to the vendor

Janne Westerlund – Talvikaravaani LP - The edges of the cover have very light wear from shipping to the vendor.

"Janne Westerlund is a familiar man in many ways. Circle is always mentioned, of course, but the brilliant Pharaoh Overlord and Plain Ride are also worth mentioning when listing the artist's extensive merits. In his solo production, Westerlund has followed the path of a more folk sound, and the 2012 Oran solo album has served as a kind of guideline for later recordings.

Sound-wise, Talvikaravaani continues along the lines of its predecessors, with mainly acoustic and folky sounds occasionally receiving electronic support. Of course, those images should not be left too beautiful, as the artist has always strived for hard realism in his texts, which is coloured by dreamlike, perhaps even visionary, flashes and scenes. East, West, North, South – these words have rarely had any real weight in Westerlund's music, or at least no power that draws hard boundaries.

So the winter caravan runs close to the tracks of its predecessors, but something has changed. The language is now Finnish, which makes the texts more direct – or has the language changed to Finnish because the scarce texts are so hard and direct? Go and know, but the end result is chillingly eloquent and effective at its best, and you don't need Dylan-like clumps of words to underline everything.

The Winter Caravan sees young people going somewhere for war, perhaps even the Winter War, without the young men who played their children's games not so long ago without fully understanding the whole situation. Some later return shoveled in boxes, crippled the times, and nothing is as it used to be, even though all of this is still surrounded by the same white winter. The snow horse sees freedom from the everyday treadmill as an opportunity, but here, too, there is a smell of tragedy in the background and the shades of snow are questionable.

And who is responsible for the Darkness, that figure stuck with the narrator? Gloom flourishes as the banjo plays quietly and the everyday mysticism of the text is stirred. Offering a slightly heavier sound, Varjotarha briefly brings back the muddy taste of the early blues, with the heavy beat twisting louder, harder. But there is a promise of better waiting at the last words, or at least that is how I interpret what I have heard. Another number that reminds me of Westerlund's heavier bands is undeniably My Heart Flies, whose briskly krautro rolling brightens up the whole album strangely.

Winter Caravan is a darkness album in a soft way, a possible reaction to our time by an artist who has taken his soulful silence even further. The world has changed, nothing is the same as before, and the farther the past slips, the happier it may seem to us." - Mika Roth / Desibeli.net