THE VINTAGE CARAVAN-Gateways

Nuclear Blast Records

We do not hear a lot of rock and metal bands coming out of Iceland, do we? But just as their national soccer team is now a force to be reckoned with also The Vintage Caravan are knocking on the door with their fourth release ‘Gateways’. The trio has played on several prestigious festivals, toured as support for Europe and opened for bands that on a musical level fit quite well with them like Grand Magus and Blues Pills. The band name The Vintage Caravan already suggests that this trio brings us some vintage rock inspired by bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Drenched in a psychedelic sauce guitarist/singer Oskar Logi, drummer Stefan Ari and bass player Alex Orn (his instrument pops up prominently in the mix sometimes) continue on the musical path they started paving with their first three releases ‘The Vintage Caravan’ (2011), ‘Voyage’ (2012-released in 2014) and ‘Arrival’ (2015), the last one being hailed as their best thus far. ‘Gateways’ though has more balanced and better worked out songs on offer and more important has a shitload of variety, showing some different sides of this trio. A bit of Spiritual Beggars, some Sabbath, bit of Zep and a healthy amount of psychedelic and acid stuff packed together in hallucinating songs like opener ,,Set Your Sights’’, ,,Nebula’’ or the laid back closer ,,Tune Out’’ with in between them other intriguing tracks (,,The Way’’ with an old fashioned hard beating riff and a pulsating bass) makes ‘Gateways’ the best The Vintage Caravan album so far. And the best thing is that this trio is still developing so who knows what they will bring us in the future. Iceland is knocking on the door indeed and in more ways than one!