The Swedes Paganus are probably know to those of you who frequent this column. They are rockers with continuioysl flirt with their country’s folk tradition and obsessively love Jethro Tull. After “Skogsrock”, Johannes Soderqvist and his mates release their second output “Kalla”. Paganus isn’t an easy case of a band: their lyrics deal with matters of ecology and carry the message of respect to Mother Nature, the group uses traditional, thus ancient instruments and patters of style in order to prove the unendless continuity of past and present, always avoiding the sterile crusadership or didactism. Skyclad would be proud of them. Paganus’ music owes much to Jethro Tull’s trilogy made of the “Songs from the Woods”/”Heavy Horses”/”Stormwatch” albums as much as to Swedish bands from the seventies that combined rock with folk, like Kebnekaise, Trad, gras och Stenar and International Harvester. At the same time the group has a hard rock base, and trust me when they rock they really rock hard. They sing in their mother tongue, so if you live outside Sweden you will be deprived of one of their major weapons, the understanding of the lyrics, however you must definitely check this band out.

(c) VASILIS ZAHAROPOULOS, METAL HAMMER GREECE.