GJENFERD – Black Smoke Rising

RELEASE YEAR: 2026
BAND URL: https://gjenferdbergen.bandcamp.com/album/black-smoke-rising

Just when I thought that it would be impossible for this quartet to improve on their flawless self-titled debut offering from 2024, they go ahead and do something like this, i.e. bringing a lovely crafted piece of magical hard rock with vintage vibes to life and doing it in such a manner that the world outside hardly exists when listening to it. Fucking hell, this is so ridiculously good, deftly executed, full of warmth and vigor, and overflowing with genuine passion and outstanding ideas that it defies common sense. This is the perfect-sounding successor to their first LP and by extension an early candidate for album of the year. Yes, you read that right!

The 60s and 70s obviously loom large in these chaps’ record collections but they are essentially taking something from a bygone age, transforming it into something unique with a beguiling aura and atmosphere all of its own, and somehow making it appear as if they are looking to the future. Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Company, and especially age-old Deep Purple and Uriah Heep come to mind again and again but at no point in time does it feel derivative. One of the many things that impresses me is its ability to uphold its momentum from beginning to end; at no point in time do they lose sight of what makes a magnificent song work on many different levels, and it blows my mind that they are capable of making it sound as effortless as it does on Black Smoke Rising. The suitably unpolished production cloaks their world of crunchy and distorted rock in a thick, velvety aura that appears to transcend time, space, and any notion of conventional thinking, which is not entirely unlike what Black Sabbath’s 1972 masterpiece Vol. 4 also managed to do. There are definitely parallels there, my friends. Other prime cuts include the epic, doom-laden “The Thrill” and the emotive yet gloomy “The Silence.”   

I must have listened to this twenty-five times already and my love for it is hardly waning – on the contrary. Gjenferd is undoubtedly one of the most exciting acts that I have come across these past few years and anyone who is into mind-numbingly memorable and heartfelt classic rock ought to invest in this phenomenal opus the very fucking second it becomes available. And for the record, the opening track named “Crimson Rain” is one of the best tunes ever conceived. Riveting is the word!