This strange name represents the latest project from Ken Inwersen, whose name most probably does not mean much to the average hard Rock fan.  And it should since Ken has his laurels with the more pop side of contemporary music with top charting work in Norway, while in our territory he has credits as Ken Hensley’s (ex-Uriah Heep) personal band and was the original guitarist for Street Legal (with two albums for Frontiers, named “Thunderdome” in 2000 and “Bite The Bullet” in 2009). I don’t know if and which his personal activities could be all these years as far as the hard sound is concerned ( I read of work with Glenn Hughes, TNT, Rick Springfield, Dan Reed and John Lawton) but with a cd like “Reincarnation”, I should carve his name to my memory.

What first stroke me when listening to “Reincarnation” is the vocals. Deep and warm in places and acute and groovie elsewhere, the vocals won me over no matter of the musical background. Which is rather…hmmm… strange. It balances between melodic hard rock and progressive power pop/rock with some special moments that could be tagged as Metal. The production and the arrangement are quite digitalized but the guitars fire at will. Quieter moments could be categorized as “commercial” but the melodies will surely win over the listener in the end. 

The sound is crisp clear and this, theoretically, helps in making everything clear from the beginning, you will either like it or not. Continuous listens, however, are rather necessary since the compositional structure of “Reincarnation” is far from typical and well distinguished from scratch. To this contributes the compositional DNA of Ingwersen but also the decisive  contribution of excellent musicians such as Genn Hughes, ken Hensley, Michael Eriksen and Truls Haugen (Circus Maximus), Nils K. Rue (Pagans Mind), Tommy La Verdi (21 Guns), Eirikur Hauksson (Artch), Morty Black (TNT) and Jon Rydningen (Dream Police). OK, Ken must be rather well known and respected around. 

Without the vocals, “Reincarnation” could as well be a chill-out Pop/Rock instrumental soundtrack. This means a lot for its melodic structure. It is a very good CD that eludes the logic of structural categorization in Hard Rock, AOR or whatever else subgenre. Musicians with knowledge and experience are expected to appreciate it much faster, however if you put yourselves among the fans of free melody and harmony in music, give it a chance.