John Norum reveals Europe writing songs for new album and planning on going into studio in April/May
John Norum reveals Europe writing songs for new album and planning on going into studio in April/May
Europe guitarist John Norum was recently interviewed by Eamon O’Neill for UK’s eonmusic.
It was pointed out to Norum that it’s been five years since the release of Europe‘s last studio album Walk The Earth to which he replied:
“Has it been five years?! Oh wow! That seems like a very long time. I thought it was something like three years ago, wow! Time just flies by, it’s crazy. Well, we’ve been talking. We did a gig a couple of weeks ago, and we had a meeting before the show, and talked about future plans and things like that, so we plan to go in the studio in around April / May [2023], something like that, but we are writing songs at the moment for the next Europe album, and we’re looking for producers. We hope can work with Dave Cobb again because he’s the greatest. He’s so good, he’s amazing, so hopefully we can do it with him if he’s not busy, and hope that we can do it in his studio because that would be a lot of fun. He has a studio in Nashville, so that would be fun to go there and record the next album.”
Sleaze Roxx stated the following in its review of Walk The Earth: “There are only a handful of tracks that are really worth listening to on Walk The Earth consisting of the title track, the peppier and more melodic “GTO” and the closest sounding song to older Europe material — “Whenever You’re Ready.” Funny enough, out of the first five songs, only the title track is worth listening to with the four others really lacking in melodies and bordering on quite dull. It’s not often that an album is a lot stronger during its second half but that’s exactly the case for Walk The Earth with songs seven to ten seemingly rocking a little more and laying off on the keyboards/Hammond organ dominance.
Now before you think that I am just bashing Europe, I must emphasize that they have come up with some good to great stuff since reuniting back in 2003 including Start From The Dark, Secret Society and especially Last Look At Eden. Bag Of Bones was alright but it’s really with War Of Kings that Europe started to stray a little too far and they have taken it unfortunately even further with Walk The Earth. Overall, Walk The Earth represents a second disappointing album in a row from Europe. Hopefully, they’ll decide one day to go back to their ’80s glory sound or at least get back to songs in the vein of Last Look At Eden.”