The Storm carry with them the interesting quality that when you’re listening to a track the first time, you know that the accompanying music video will include massive amounts of dry ice, several wind machines and quite possibly fire. Whether that’s a good quality has been widely debated in their native Denmark.

The Storm – consisting of Johan Wohlert (formerly of Mew) and Pernille Rosendahl, former vocalist in Swan Lee – released their debut ‘Where The Storm Meets The Ground’ last year. The album was produced by legendary Roy Thomas Baker who, judging from the listening experience, turned all knobs he could get his hands on up to 11 and screamed “Rock on!”. Most Danish music critics hated it with a vengeance. I really liked it though.

I also really like that the duo respond to the criticism by releasing a new album with ten tracks in exactly the same style. ‘Black Luck’ is essentially pop songs with layers and layers of rock upon them. With layers of rock on top. Granted, at times the songs are so pompous even Meat Loaf might find them a bit over the top, but as an alternative to the innumerable shoegazing indie outfits that are so haunted by weltschmertz that they can barely manage to strum their guitars, it’s quite liberating with a band that isn’t afraid of being a bit too much.

I like artsy-fartsy black and white French movies as much as the next guy, but sometimes it’s nice to watch a Michael Bay flick as well; big, loud and with tons of stuff that explode for no apparent reason. Which essentially is the cinematic equivalent of The Storm. Pernille Rosendahl does not strictly speaking have a voice very suitable for rock but somehow her delicate voice works really well with Johan Wohlert’s windmill guitar playing. As does with Michael Poulsen of Volbeat’s bombastic voice on the great track ‘B.S.E.’.

Anyway, to the surprise of very few ‘Black Luck’ received generally bad reviews once again, but in my opinion the band is worth a few minutes of your time.

Genre: Rock
Who: The Storm
Album: Black Luck
Label: Target Records
Year: 2009
Country: Denmark   
Language: English
DOWNLOAD VIA

Recommended tracks:
Wall Of Shame – Are Your Shoes Too Tight – B.S.E. – Dominos