After nearly two decades at the heart of Norway’s Americana scene, Larsen remains a force of quiet intensity. Known as a “country purist,” he’s a master of storytelling rooted in the traditions of Hank Williams, John Prine, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young — but never bound by them. His music has always spoken to struggle, doubt, and redemption with a kind of honest humility few artists dare to reach. Vol.2 is no exception — but it marks a striking evolution in sound and spirit.
This album does not rest on nostalgia or comfortable tropes. It leaves the campfire behind and heads into stormier terrain. If previous works — like Gospel for Non-Believers or Isolation Blues & Other Songs of Hope — captured the sacred in the secular and the stillness of solitude, Stream of Consciousness Vol.2 is what happens when solitude breaks open. It’s restless. It’s unafraid. It moves like a mind running through memories, fears, and distant hopes — trying to make sense of what’s left.
Larsen’s band, The Alabama Rodeo Stars, once again proves to be the perfect vehicle for this kind of transformation. The arrangements are stripped yet lush, precise but untamed. There’s no need for overproduction or artificial gloss — this is music that bleeds authenticity. Guitars hum with tension, the rhythm section presses forward with quiet urgency, and when piano, violin, or harmonica enter the frame, they do so like old ghosts returning with something to say.
Songs like “Dreamer” and “Finding Myself” peel away the outer shell and go straight to the center. There’s no pretense, no metaphorical disguise. Larsen sings plainly, but with the weight of someone who’s lived every syllable. His voice — sometimes worn, sometimes soaring — echoes the grit of Tom Waits and the spiritual ache of Van Morrison, always laced with a fragile warmth.
What sets this album apart from its predecessor is the emotional tempo. This isn’t music for background listening or passive reflection. It demands attention. Where Vol.1 was contemplative, Vol.2 surges with feeling — heartbreak, defiance, longing. Even the track titles (“I Miss You,” “You’re Not the Same,” “I Don’t Care”) suggest a stripping down to the emotional essentials. Larsen isn’t telling stories here; he’s bleeding them out.
Yet for all its personal weight, this album isn’t insular. It reaches outward. Larsen has always had a gift for writing songs that feel both specific and universal, and nowhere is that clearer than in the album’s final, unexpected pivot. The closing track asks a timely, uncomfortable question about political apathy in the music world. Delivered with tongue-in-cheek charm and a slightly vaudevillian sound, it nonetheless lands like a stone in still water: a ripple you can’t ignore.
What emerges from Stream of Consciousness Vol.2 is not just another Americana record. It’s a testament. A confession. A late-night conversation between an artist and himself, overheard by the rest of us in awe. It holds contradictions: it's rough yet refined, somber yet uplifting, grounded yet unbound by place. It’s not about bars or highways or dusty towns — it’s about the inner landscapes we all carry, and the songs that make them bearable.
Olav Larsen has never been interested in trends. His music — drawing on Appalachian folk, country blues, and secular gospel — is made with too much reverence, and too much heart, for that. But with Stream of Consciousness Vol.2, he proves once again why he’s one of the most vital voices in European Americana: because when he sings, it doesn’t feel like performance. It feels like truth.
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