Pete Feenstra chatted to Erja for his show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio playing tracks from the new album. First broadcast 4 May 2025.

Tuohi [Release date 28.03.25]

‘Smell The Roses’ is a refreshingly groundbreaking rock album that burst with vitality, imagination and incendiary playing.

Everything about the album from the art work to the big organic band sound aims to make a splash.

It’s an album that celebrates and updates the nascent classic rock years, with booming arrangements, strong choruses and a huge sonic quality.

And yet, in moving in a heavier direction Erja never loses sight of her songcraft, as she helps restore the innovative side of rock to the forefront of contemporary music.

‘Smell The Roses’ is full of intensity, bristling interplay, stellar solos and a ‘can do’ attitude which translates into taking a chance and seeing where it takes you.

That’s not to Erja’ production is anything less that pristine. She self evidently has the vision, planning ability and chops to put her previous experience to good use.

No more so, than on her judicious use of her own imperious guitar solos which give her songs dynamism and spark.

What makes ‘Smell The Roses’ arguably her best album so far, is the fact she pushes herself to the limit both vocally and as a guitarist on material that breaks new ground for her.

The title track serves as the perfect intro to a full blown rock album, crafted with a sense of urgency, dirty guitar tones, a tic-toc snare, a keen sense of dynamics and an ethereal chorus with a lyrical punch.

And right at the heart of this sonic storm is Lytinnen’s triumphant vocal, arguably the best of her career.

‘Smell The Roses’ is a return to the basics of rock in which a hard driving band makes music with enough imagination and intensity to capture the flavour of some very personal lyrics.

There’s plenty of steely riffing, including the proggy tempo shift on the hard rocking ‘Going To Hell’, which works its way to a breathtaking unison guitar solo.

Then there’s the heavier stop-start of ‘Abyss’, full of a booming bass lines and organ pulses, on a lyrically dark song in which 2 huge contrasting solos gloriously stretch the number to over 7 minutes.

The riff-heavy finale features a John Bonham drum sound with cymbal crashes and her final ripping solo reminds us of what rock used to be about.

There’s a similar intensity to the slide and Hammond-led, balls out rocker called’ The Ring’, on which she swaps the clichéd boxing metaphor for wrestling.

Having focused on the heavier rock spectrum, this is not an album that complacently sits in one musical pocket.

Listen for example, to the uplifting ‘Wish To Fly’, with its impressive mix of sludgy riffs, poppy high register vocals and a mid-number unison guitar break.

She revert to wild slide guitar on the staccato, fuzz-heavy ‘Ball And Chain’ and saves her best for the last 2 tracks, of which the swampy, slide-led ‘Stoney Creek’ evokes an early 70’s John Fogerty groove.

The song’s eerie autumn imagery also suggests there more to the story than meets the eye.

This is the track on which she hangs back a little to her tone’s rise and float before levering herself into the best chorus of the album.

There’s much to be said for ‘light and shade’, and it’s a lesson obviously well learned, as evidenced by the perfect atmospheric bookend of ‘Empty Hours’.

‘Empty Hours’ represents the quiet after the storm, with a beguiling sensual mix of slide guitar, echo and deliberately enunciated lascivious lyrics.

What better way to end to an excellent album ****½

Review by Pete Feenstra

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 16 November 2025.

UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This 600th show was first broadcast on 18 November 2025

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Power Plays w/c 1 December 2025

We feature all the artists selected in this sequence in 2025.

Featured Albums w/c 1 December 2025

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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