Ebba Bergkvist & The Flat Tire Band – Four Wings
Release Date: 31st May 2024
Label: The Sign Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Garage Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Country, Folk.
FFO: Chainsaw Holiday, Gray Soul Pennies, Barons Court, Strom, Riverfields.
Review By: Mark Waight
Ebba Bergkvist & The Flat Tire Band were a completely unknown entity to me when I was given their upcoming Four Wings album for review. I am pretty sure they will also be unfamiliar to many of you guys out there as well, too, so we can all share this expedition into the unknown together.
The band who hail from Stockholm in Sweden started off as a music school solo project in 2017 before becoming a fully-fledged Blues Rock band a few years ago who can move effortlessly between Garage Rock, heartbreaking Blues, and heavy guitar riffs.
The band consist of Ebba Bergkvist (guitar, vocals), Bjorn Bjornhult Korning (bass), Adam Randolph (drums) and Jonas Skeppar (guitar).
Let’s face it, Ebba Bergkvist & The Flat Tire Band is certainly a name that once heard you are never going to forget, so let’s delve in a little deeper and see if the same thing applies to their music.
Opening is album title track Four Wings; a superb riffing blues tune with echoes of the late 60s, early 70s written right the way through it like a sweet stick of seaside rock! Hot on its shirt-tail, The Pack is a little slower and heavier but just as groovy with that super cool retro sound and psychedelic beat filling the room with glorious sound.
Northeast Passage is very much in the same vein with an added sprinkling of rockier vocals, some Hendrix style guitar playing and an uncanny knack for making you want to sing-along. Beating out a belting rock song like Vice Versa keeps things firmly on track by way of some outstanding drumming and the obligatory guitar solo just to give it that authentic old school feel.
Seasick takes things in a slightly different direction, with a blend of Country and Blues bringing something extra to the table. Released as a single, this track has plenty of cross genre appeal and some excellent vocals to boot. Slowing things right down, Backslide again fuses a Country and Blues theme with maybe a hint of Folk influence thrown in for good measure to generate a totally unique laid-back style this time.
Black Horses takes us in another direction all together with a super slow and kick back ice cool pace that just chills things right out and far out man! We are now officially in the groove and with the addition of some nifty organ playing in next up song Maverick we can now also take a time machine back to the summer of love, how cool is that I hear you ask? Very cool indeed!!
Picking things up once again, Treachery sits somewhere neatly in between the old and the new, with a more modern undercurrent complimenting the more rustic rock influences of the past. Then all too soon we reach the finale, with closer Eastern Prairies masquerading pretty much as a full-on Country song and bringing proceedings to a fitting climax.
Four Wings is one of those albums that will grow and grow on you the more that you listen to it. On the first listen I found plenty of familiar styles that I could instantly relate to, but by the fourth listen I began to appreciate the whole thing as even the more unfamiliar became clearer. Ebba Bergkvist & The Flat Tire Band are well worth checking out, and Four Wings should do well for them if it gets the attention it deserves. If you are a fan of the late 60s early 70s era of Rock, then Four Wings will be right up your street, but I also feel fans of Country music may well appreciate this cool album with plenty of surprises, too. 
(4 / 5)
