(Original on kaizers.no, Text backup here)
The author Tore Renberg from Stavanger, best known for his up to now three books about Jarle Klepp, "Mannen som elsket Yngve", "Kompani Orheim", and "Charlotte Isabel Hansen", is an active man on several cultural fronts, and it is no secret that he has a special passion for music. On his own website, torerenberg.no, he points out Kaizers Orchestra this week in his regular column "recommendation of the week". Renberg has closely followed the band since his curiosity was raised by a concert preview in the newspaper Aftenposten on a cold winter day early in 2001, and despite of his critical and reflecting view, he has almost only praising words to say about the rattling crew. Here's a little excerpt:"Today, Kaizers Orchestra stand out as the complete band, and with this I mean: They are their own masters, they have full control, they can do what they want, they don't make mistakes. They are just as self-confident as they have always been, they keep up a fine balance between being authorities over the audience and friends with us, and they are just as inspired as they were in 2001. It's time to say it: Kaizer have taken the big step, they are the best band in Norwegian rock, of all times. Their catalog of albums and songs is impressive whenever I look at it, the albums don't weaken when the years go by, like all good Norwegian rock bands have, the songs they play, and not less the arrangements, sound searching, ambitious, unique. Live are they only beaten by Bob Hund up in the North, and what they have done with "Våre Demoner" is almost as irritatingly good as the song "Prosessen" has always been."
- I think that this is the time when the really big ones stand out. And this is the time to say it, not in a safe retrospective 20-years-later setting. I stand by that now! Renberg says in a comment to Kaizernews.
We take another little quote:
"We should be proud of this band. They put the spades into the ground, they chopped out stones in the mountains, they went into the mines. They found their own gold. They dealt it out to us. They don't sound like anyone else. And they don't give in."
Read the whole commentary on www.torerenberg.no.