Joensuu, Mikko: Amen 2

This album is the second in a projected trilogy that explore Mikko Joensuu's personal and vulnerable sides. On the first Amen album, the music was performed exclusively on acoustic instruments. On this one, Joensuu expands the instrumentation but is no less committed to songwriting that looks inward. For the most part, this release allows Joensuu to express the ways his loss of faith in God raised new questions about the world and his life. On a broader scale, the music is about the peaks and valleys of human experience, the way things take on new meaning with each passing stage of life. For the most part, the music is engaging and sincere. There's nothing particularly heavy here so fans of extreme music might either want to stay away or expand their horizons.

Many of the songs on this album have a slight poppy sensibility that lends more bounce and rhythm to tracks like "No One Knows" and "There Used to be a Darkness." Other tracks, "Golden Age of the Lowlands," for example, have some of the swaying rhythm and introspection of singer-songwriters such as Tom Petty or Bob Dylan. For some listeners, the closest point of comparison to the music here is probably 60s-era folk music mixed with a slight touch of 80s new wave. Joensuu's voice is warm and wobbly, meriting comparisons to Roger McGuinn and, at times, to Bob Dylan.

Track Listing:
1. Drop Me Down
2. Dying Rain
3. No One Knows
4. What Have I Done
5. Sunshine
6. There Used to be a Darkness
7. Golden Age of the Lowlands
8. I Gave You all

Added: December 1st 2016
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 1393
Language: english

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