Rob's Album Of The Week: Viking Jesus

My beloved friend and fellow 990WBOB personality Kris Hansen is one hell of a musician and has a bigger passion for strumming the guitar and belting his soul out more than anyone I've ever met. Since this is supposed to be the last week until the end of the world, it's only fitting that Kris' band Viking Jesus has a self-titled album being released and it's pretty damn awesome. The record is genre-defying while at the same time very contemporary. The psychedelic rhythms and lo-fi style to go along with Kris' impeccable songwriting skills makes me think if Pink Floyd and Elliott Smith had a strangely dynamic lovechild, Kris' music would be it.

Joined with George Dussault, Viking Jesus takes your mind to a place musically where you've never been. With synth beats on a few tracks to go along with groovy riffs and catchy lyrics, Viking Jesus is in another world when it comes to writing songs that have meaning and substance. Sheer originality encompasses the record to no end, to many times these days you'll hear a band put out an album and within seconds you'll know a good handful of their influences just by listening to their songs. Viking Jesus isn't like that at all; the uniqueness of each track on the record gives it its own niche, making the album an absolute jewel.

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- Rob Duguay

Here's that time again where I pick my favorite songs, which is never easy. It's a labor of love but hey it could be worse, I could be forcing myself to review a horrible album instead of an amazing one like Viking Jesus. Anyways, here goes something: "Big Brother Blues" goes from being a funky ditty to sounding like a hidden track off of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, strikingly ground-breaking and beautifully fantastic. "1 & 7" always makes me think of Lawrence of Arabia and puts me in the mood to go on an expedition in the Sahara, the way the song is written has middle eastern styles that many wouldn't recognize. "Traffic Song" has a crushing guitar riff that makes the track groovy as hell, another song that will put you in a state of ecstasy. Don't just sit there while reading this and do nothing about it, get up off your ass and grab a copy of Viking Jesus.

Viking Jesus will be having their album release party at The Met in Pawtucket right before the apocalypse on December 20th with Jon Tierney, Consuelo's Revenge and Jay Berndt & The Orphans, a great way to spend the demise of planet Earth with some soothingly terrific tunes. You can either come by the show at pick up your copy of the album or I'm sure you can find it on the internet very very soon, regardless get yourself a copy of Viking Jesus. It'll make you as happy as eating one of Kris' cookies.