Back in 2012 Daniel Gildenlöw and band were invited to play an unplugged gig in Germany, and while that show didn’t pan out the idea stuck with them.
Thus they brought the recording kit into their rehearsal room studio, and here we have Falling Home. This is the band in their live, pared-down glory, acoustic guitars complete with Moogs and Rhodes piano, and boy, do their songs stand up to scrutiny. The purity and structure of the tunes are laid bare throughout. In this unvarnished form 1979 sounds like a stone-cold rock classic, as does the 6⁄8 lollop of To The Shoreline. Stress comes over as a cheeky, jazzy, rockabilly number, a flavour that carries over into their tongue-in-cheek take on Dio’s Holy Diver. That’s more a novelty than anything else, and does the world really need another cover of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day, even a decent one like this? Maybe not, but that’s not to take away from this accomplished set which is full of fun, charm, melody and plenty of evidence of their proggy leanings. Falling Home will do very nicely as an amuse-bouche, but as the beautiful title track fades you’re left hoping we won’t be waiting too much longer for the real sequel to Road Salt Two.
