Album Review: Siena Root – A Dream of Lasting Peace

Siena Root – A Dream of Lasting Peace
Release Date: May 26, 2017
Label: MIG Music

If you are a frequent visitor to this site, you know how much I love my Swedish rock nā€™ roll. Whether is the gritty sounds of Graveyard or the groovy, soulful jams Blues Pills, Sweden seems to be responsible to for putting out some of my favorite music. A few years ago I was tipped off to band called Siena Root and their live album Root Jam. The album absolutely blew my mind but unfortunately, the albums that followed didnā€™t do much for meā€¦ that is until this year when the band released the stellar A Dream of Lasting Peace.

For nearly 20 years, Siena Root acted as a musical collect of sorts featuring a revolving door of guest vocalists and other instrumentalist supporting the core of the band: guitar, bass, and drums. While I dug this concept, I always wondered if this is what may have kept them from achieving a certain level of success that their peers were finding. Inconsistent vocals ranging from amazing to just ok seemed to be what turned me off for the most part but with A Dream of Lasting Peace, Siena Root has solidified a five piece line up that is consistent, tight, and, well, making one of the best fucking albums I have heard all year.

The album kicks off with the jazzy, New Orleans flavored ā€œSecretsā€ with the organ really dominating the vibe which is not a bad thing at all. The band then takes a sharp turn with ā€œTales of Independenceā€ which loses a bit of the jazz feel but does adopt a sort of New Orleans (Nā€™awlins if you will) funk ala The Meters. The album runs the gamut of genres as the band delves into jazz, the blues, psychedelia, and good old fashioned face rock on ā€œGrowing Underground.ā€

The real show stopper on this album is the Led Zeppelin-esque psych blues masterpiece ā€œThe Piper Wonā€™t Let You Stay.ā€ Lead vocalist Samuel Bjƶrƶ really stepped into the light on this one and let his presence be known. His performance gave me chills and that breakdown change in the middle of the song is the shit that epic songs are made of.

Siena Root did good and they did it right. A Dream of Lasting Peace sounds like a band that has been doing this together for 20+ years and thatā€™s saying a lot for a band who has relied on a revolving door of talent for the better part of their existence. This album is pure magic. Itā€™s beautiful, itā€™s nasty, itā€™s heartfelt, itā€™s gritty, itā€™s soulful, and itā€™s just everything that a great album should be. A Dream of Lasting Peace, in my opinion, is a perfect album. Itā€™s culmination of everything that I love about music in general and squeezed onto one face-melting plastic platter of awesomeness. Yes, Iā€™m excited but can you blame me? Give this one a spin and you feel it too.

For more on Siena Root, head over to https://www.facebook.com/sienaroot

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