Like Airbag, who I've already championed in the blog, Wobbler are a neo-progressive rock band from Norway, comprising Kristian Karl Hultgren on bass, bass clarinet, and bass recorder, Lars Fredrik Frøislie on keyboards, Martin Nordrum Kneppen on drums, percussion, and recorder, Morten Andreas Eriksen on lead guitar, mandolin, and tambourine, and Tony Johannessen on lead vocals. They formed near Hønefoss, Norway, in early 1999, with a desire to recreate some of the musical expressions of the early 1970's, especially in the use of the instruments of that time and the compositions of the progressive rock scene from 1969 to 1974. Bands like PFM, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes, Museo Rosenbach, ELP and so on were highly influential on the group, and in a few months the basic ideas were in place for what they wanted their music to sound like. There was then a pause from 2001 to around 2003, when a demo of two of those 1999 songs was recorded at Frøislie's studio, and put out on the internet. Wobbler ended up signing a record deal with the American record label The Laser's Edge, and by now, Frøislie's vintage keyboard collection had grown, and the recording of their debut album 'Hinterland' began in June 2004.
They did not use any MIDI, and only pre-1975 instruments were applied, including Mellotron, Hammond organ, Minimoog, Rhodes piano, clavinet, ARP, piano and harpsichord, and after eight months of studio work the album was ready, and 'Hinterland' was revealed at NEARfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, during one of their rare live performances in July 2005. 'Afterglow' followed in February 2009, released by their new label Termo Records, and it was this record that introduced me to this superb band, although there were internal changes going on, with original vocalist Johannessen leaving and being replaced by Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo, who still sings with them today. Their third album 'Rites At Dawn' was released by Termo Records in May 2011, and this prompted another change in personnel, with Geir Marius Bergom Halleland replacing Eriksen on lead guitar. After a long hiatus, their fourth album, 'From Silence To Somewhere', appeared in 2017, and it met with overwhelming acclaim. As of April 2021, it was the top rated album of the entire twenty-first century on the progressive rock database Prog Archives, with an average user rating of 4.35 from over 700 ratings, and the website's thirty-second-highest rated album of all time.
Although the album's niche genre resulted in limited exposure in some parts of the music press, it received reviews ranging from favourable to rapturous on Angry Metal Guy, The Prog Space, Prog Report, Prog Radar, and Team Rock, while the Norwegian website Evig lyttar ranked it as the best Norwegian album of the year. The band's fifth and most recent album, 'Dwellers Of The Deep', was released in October 2020, and quickly jumped to the top of the Prog Archives 2020 albums chart within two days of its release. Band members Prestmo, Kneppen, and Frøislie have also collaborated with other Norwegian prog artists on the long-running project 'The Chronicles Of Father Robin', which has released three volumes of 'The Songs & Tales Of Airoea' in 2023 and 2024, initially as a crowdfunded box set, and later via individual releases on Karisma Records. As an introduction to the band for anyone who doesn't know them, here are the two 1999 songs that they recorded as demos in 2003, one of which has yet to appear on a studio album, and to flesh out an otherwise rather short record, I've included a track from one of their very infrequent live concerts from 2012.
Track listing
01 Imperial Winter White Dwarf
02 Leprechaun Behind The Door
03 In Taberna
