Musiklaget 1975 / Sommor 2017
Till Den Sträng Som Brast Än Att Aldrig Spänna En Båge
Heavy psych from Sweden to knock one socks off and to pull ’em up again.
With their only album’s title being one of the longest for its time, this group deserved some attention at least in Scandinavia, yet polymath approach to songs and politically-slanted lyrics rendered “Till Den…” a period piece. Same could be said about the music – and there are numbers like “K-E Andersson” that reek of the late ’60s – if a triple-guitar front didn’t make a few cuts stand out and shine.
Riff-laden tracks such as the bluesy “Vapnet” or raw opener “Göta Lejon” – where a steamrolling organ passes momentum to piano – reach first for the listener’s jugular and then, with reeds joining in, for their heartstrings, while the vocal harmonies add allure to the playful “Vidsel-Sthlm, Enkel” whose renaissance innocence is stressed by stereo panning of six-string ensemble. Falling in between the romantic and the cynical, epic “Sagan Om Viggen” may betray the band’s WISHBONE ASH influence in its structure and texture, but the exquisite prog of “Chaú Gaí” bears the group’s own stamp of compromised uniqueness.
If they carried on down that route, these traits would have been outlined; as it turned out, there was nothing after “Till Den…” which remains a riveting testament to the artists’ unfulfilled potential.
***4/5
