My favorite head-banging Norwegian metal prog folk rock band is back! Gangar’s second full-length Dreng continues in their established vein of playing knock-em-dead versions of Scandinavian folk songs and dance tunes on Hardanger fiddle plus rock instruments.
The Oslo based Gangar is Mattias Truell Thedens on Hardanger fiddle, Oskar Goedvriend Lindberget on saxophone, Richard Max guitar, Jonas Thrana Jensen bass and Henrik Dullum drums. They’ve been playing live since 2021 and released their debut EP Tre Danser the next year. Next came their first full length Stubb in late 2023, and since then they’ve been touring a lot of festivals and concerts in 14 countries across three continents, including their 100th concert at Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festival in the UK in 2024.
On Stubb they had a guest or two, including Synnøve Brøndbo Plassen singing on the delightful single “Sukkeri er søtt” (Sugar is Sweet), and she’s here again, with some other guest singers as well. They’re also joined by world renowned jazz saxophonist and producer Karl Seglem on his other instrument, the bukkehorn (a goat’s horn), Ingrid Lingaas Fossum on the ubiquitous Norwegian zither the langeleik, and Erlend Viken on the octave fiddle.
The production this time is deeper and richer with the studio becoming another instrument, as the band explains in the liner notes: “The creation process for this album was completely different from our debut. With Stubb, we tried to transfer live arrangements to the studio, while with Dreng we utilized all the possibilities the studio offers.”
One of my favorites on Dreng is “Murukleiven II,” which features vocallist Tuva Syvertsen, who plays accordion and fiddle and sings with the Valkyrien Allstars. Like “Sukkeri er søtt,” this one is another rock arrangement of a well known Telemark folk song by the late Aslak Brekke, a highly influential singer of the mid 20th century. (You can hear his lovely original recording on Spotify.)
Within the Gangar formula, there’s a certain amount of variety in these 12 tracks. For one, there’s a definite delineation between hard rock, prog, and folk rock. For hard rock look to songs like the opener “Fjukan Rjukan,” with lead vocals by Plassen and call-and-response shouts from the band; and the march “Stabb-marsj,” a straight rocker with a banging rock solo from Max on guitar and lots of unison playing by the Hardanger and saxophone. Lindberget’s baritone sax also joins in with the bass guitar for some window-rattling riffage.
Want some heavy prog rock? Check out “Marta Johannes,” possibly one of their most creative arrangements yet. At its base it’s a well known polska named for an old time fiddler, that’s been recorded by numerous musicians including Hardanger fiddler Sven Nyhus and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. This one is layered up considerably with tons of guitar, ultra distorted bass, more of that droning baritone sax and a sick tenor solo from Lindberget, all in addition to Thedens’s killer fiddling.
In a folk rock vein is “Bånsull.” The song is a well known lullaby from Telemark, sung here by Plassen and Martin Steinum Brun, with guitars not at 11 but still loud enough to keep those babies awake. They lighten things up a bit with the peppy rocker “Eg er liten” (I am little), featuring the vocals of Bare Egil, the humorous rock singer born Egil Hegerberg. “Skomakerhallingen” “The shoemaker’s hall” has two fiddles playing this prog metal version of a catchy traditional tune.
Seglem gamely plays a short atmospheric piece on the goat horn called “Hvem Karl Seglem foruten vind” (Who is Karl Seglem besides wind?” He also plays an extended section in “Bom Bom” (boom boom), one of two tour-de-force pieces on Dreng. It opens with a sludge metal bass and guitar riff that is just an introduction to a tangled prog rock arrangement of a fiddle tune, (halling?) with wordless vocals and or saxophone matching the fiddle tune in a very fast nine beat rhythm. This is kitchen sink experimental prog rock with lots of studio wizardry. There’s a brief quiet interlude on acoustic guitar, goat horn and airy flutters from sax and keyboards that then rebuilds into a heavy, wailing coda. And an even briefer coda to the coda of what sounds like a field recording of two voices singing a mouth music version of the fiddle tune. Just to keep things grounded, don’t you know.
And finally there’s “Vossavalsen,” (which means, you guessed it, waltz from Voss, which is home of the popular Vossajazz Festival). This is where I should mention that Oskar Lindberget and his saxophone are the secret sauce of this band, his jazz sense and overall aesthetics elevating Gangar’s music above simple hard rock. The jazz elements in his sax are especially notable on this piece, which is mostly prog metal in sound, with two fiddles again (one of them a 10-string “Hardanger d’amore”) and definitely some crisp strumming on the langeleik by Ingrid Lingaas Fossum. It’s followed by a sludgy Outro track just to keep things heavy.
(Heilo, 2026)
