Riis, Bjørn: A Fleeting Glimpse

As a true fan of both Pink Floyd and Airbag’s music and appreciating the influence David Gilmour has had on Bjørn Riis’s fantastic guitar playing, is easy for me to get excited when I get my hands on a new release like A Fleeting Glimpse.

Less than six months after releasing his fourth solo studio album Everything to Everyone, Riis brings us an EP with four new songs with a total running of under 30 minutes and with an evident PF inspired sound and songwriting. Riis does the vocals, all guitars, bass, and keyboards, and he is accompanied by Øyvind Brøter (keyboards) and Arild Brøter (drums) from Pymlico, Per Øydir on bass, and Durga McBroom and Mimmi Tamba on vocals.

Yes there are multiple references to albums like Saucerful of Secrets, Dark Side of The Moon and Wish You Were Here (none to The Wall from where he gets his mini album’s title), and yes his guitar tone and Durga’s voices inevitably trigger the multiple comparisons to those classics, but this is a Bjørn Riis output and it also sounds and feels like one…in fact, my favorite song here “Dark Shadows (Part 2)� reminds me a lot of Airbag’s last studio album A Day at The Beach from 2020.

A very minimalistic musical journey with very few but exquisite arrangements, zero to no complexity, and a very laid back but immensely tasty guitar work, that same guitar work Mr. Riis has us used to. “A Voyage to the Sun� and “Summer Meadows� are both instrumental tracks, the first being more psychedelic and haunting, darker and heavier, with crunching guitars gently surfing on top of tribal-sounding percussion, pristine…but the second one has a bright and beautiful acoustic guitar intro that slowly builds up and gets entangled with more guitar layers, some electric and some acoustic as well, creating a Gilmour-like world easy to fall in love with… a highlight for me. But is the closer song “Dark Shadows (Part 2)� the one that does it for me, the perfect mix between his musical influences and the amazing musician and guitarist he has become over the years. The guitar solo, the pounding bass lines, atmospheric enough but not that much, simplistic keyboards, warm vocals, and just the right groovy and hypnotic drumming… a tasty recipe for success.

Track Listing:

1. Dark Shadows (Part 1) (6:47)
2. A voyage to the Sun (7:41)
3. Summer Meadows (5:26)
4. Dark Shadows (Part 2) (6:10)

Added: October 6th 2022
Reviewer: Jose Antonio Marmol
Score:
Related Link: Artist Website
Hits: 611
Language: english

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