White Willow - 2011 - Terminal Twilight

(62:00; Karisma Records [2025 Edition] )




















Here we have the last in the White Willow remaster and reissue series from Karisma with their sixth album, 2011’s ‘Terminal Twilight’. Following from 2006’s ‘Signal to Noise’ the band felt somewhat burned out and Jacob Holm-Lupo took a break to work on his art pop band The Opium Cartel and other projects and it was only after this that he decided to work again on White Willow (the next album took even longer, and there has been nothing since 2017). This time the band decided to record and produce the album on their own while ex-drummer Mattias Olsson returned for the first time since 1998’s ‘Ex Tenebris’.  Holm-Lupo later stated that prior to working on the material he had been gorging himself on Italian prog rock, especially Le Orme, and that some of those influences came into his writing.  

I wonder if he had also been listening to no-man, as is somewhat surprising to find Tim Bowness guesting on lead vocals on “Kansas Regrets”, but it very much sounds as if it had been written for him and while it is a little out of sync with the rest of the album, it certainly sounds like Bowness through and through. The picked guitar and atmospheric production allow the vocals to be very emotional and powerful, very different indeed to what we expect from the band when fronted by Sylvia (Erichsen) Skjellestad who here is relegated to just a few backing vocals.

The rest of the album is classic White Willow. Well-constructed and arranged progressive rock with plenty of dynamics and punchy, powerful female vocals which cut through the maelstrom and allow the band to really deliver. Even the treated drumming on opener “Hawks Circle the Mountain” works well, providing the introductory menace as we get taken straight into the world of classic Seventies prog. At one time White Willow were seen as one of the most important Norwegian bands, but for whatever reasons they have only delivered one more album in the last 14 years and one can only hope they are revitalised at some point as this proves what a class act they always were. Thanks to Karisma for keeping their music alive – if you did not come across the album when it was initially released then it is now available again. 

Kev Rowland, December 2025

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/whitewillowband/
https://www.karismarecords.no/

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