Euphoria Station - 2025 - Smoking Gun

(63:24, Reverie Suite Records)

Track list:
1. Amazing Grace (In Memory Of...) 1:28
2. Take the Highway 6:47
3. Smoking Gun 6:19
4. Nowhere Junction 5:23
5. Off the Beaten Path 4:41
6. My Mistake 4:21
7. The Ballad of Grace Malloy 3:16
8. Carolina on My Mind 4:32
9. Sweep Me Away 5:54
10. Here with You 4:07
11. Living for Today 5:34
12. Dusty Roads 5:26
13. November Came Early 5:36

Line-up:
Saskia Kraft van Ermel - vocals, percussion
Hoyt Binder - guitars, dobro
Ronald van Deurzen - piano, Hammond B3
Toss Panos - drums
Tollak Ollestad - harmonica
Rebecca Kleinman - flute
Jorgen Carlsson - bass
Steven Leavitt - effects


Prolusion.
US band Euphoria Station was formed back in 2015, and is an ongoing venture revolving around the creative partnership between vocalist Saskia Kraft van Ermel and guitarist Hoyt Binder. They released their debut album "One Heart" back in 2017, and their sophomore production "The Reverie Suite" followed in 2019. A few years and one Corona-epidemic later Euphoria Station released their third album "Smoking Gun" now in the spring of 2025.

Analysis.
The core concept behind Euphoria Station is to create music that mix and blend aspects of Americana and rock inside of a progressive rock inspired framework. While I would say that this is a good description of the landscapes explored on their second album, for my sake at least I'd say that the progressive rock inspirations are a bit harder to track down on this third Euphoria Station album.

We do get the impressive 'Take the Highway' though, where the Americana undercurrents, Country Music inspired vocals and the classic rock and classic hard rock sounds are paired off with some playful guitar and flute details that fans of a band like Jethro Tull will find familiar sounding. We also get some playful flute details on a few more occasions throughout. But by and large this album has a stronger tendency to explore Americana and rock combinations in a few different manners.

That being said, this is a really well made album of its kind, and with a high quality to the compositions as well as the execution of these landscapes throughout. We have a bit of an ongoing tendency for the songs to play around with details pulled from the classic rock as well as the classic hard rock catalogue, with the latter supplying a bit more grit and a bit more of a fiery tendency that does expand the landscapes explored a bit beyond the more generic blends of rock and Americana that are ever present on the US radio stations I have come across when visiting friends stateside. There is also a bit of an emphasis on the rock aspect of the compositions as a whole, if tied between rock and Americana as far as categorization goes this would in just about all cases be an album you'd find under the rock section I'd imagine.

While van Ermel's vocals strike me as being the key element as far as a distinct influx from the Country Music tradition goes, there is an ongoing Americana undercurrent to these songs too. The main exceptions to this are a few tracks where there is a distinctly stronger emphasis on blues elements, and on these occasions the Americana content becomes a  bit more of a subtle presence. An additional trait that will come and go a bit are folk music details with more of a European vibe to them, and more often than not with sounds that give me associations towards the Celtic folk music legacy. In just about all cases this is more of a subtle addition to the landscapes explored, and one that may well be accidental: There is a bit of a relationship between European and Celtic folk music and US folk music and Americana after all.

Conclusion.
While this most recent album by Euphoria Station may not have the greatest draw among those with a more purebred interest in music that can be defined inside of the progressive rock tradition, it is a solid album with some fine and excellent moments for those who appreciate quality music on a more general note. In this case with classic rock, hard rock and Americana as key ingredients, with a slight influx of folk music elements and more of an occasional nod towards the progressive rock tradition. A strong and solid production on all levels.

Olav "Progmessor" Björnsen, June 2025

Links:
https://www.euphoriastation.com/