Denmark's Biggest Blues Band Still Hasn't Run Out of Road

Thorbjørn Risager leads the biggest touring blues outfit to come out of Denmark, an eight-piece with horns and backing vocals that could easily tip over into bloat in less careful hands. Navigation Blues, produced by Søren Bøjgaard, doesn't make that mistake once across its twelve tracks — every horn stab and string swell earns its place.

The title track sets the template: pre-war blues stomp underneath, but dressed with a modern production sheen that never feels like it's compensating for a lack of grit. Risager's voice has that weathered, lived-in quality that lets a big arrangement breathe around it instead of fighting it, and "The Way You Make Me Feel" shows the band at its most soulful, horns and all.

What impresses me most is the discipline. Eight musicians is a lot of people to keep out of each other's way, and this record never once sounds crowded — it sounds like a band that has spent enough years on European festival stages to know exactly when to hold back.

Mine favorittspor: the title track "Navigation Blues" for how confidently it announces the whole record, and "Watch The Sun Go Down" for the horn arrangement alone.

Redaktørens dom: This is European blues at its most confidently big-band, and it's earned every bit of the festival headline slots it's picked up since release.