New album to check out. This rambling, as all the subsequent ramblings I will have in here will be shorter than what I've normally been putting in here. It also reads like I am auditioning to be a Pitchfork writer or something.
As always, the link is on the bottom and it's free to download for a week or so.
Dungen - Ta De Lugnt
I have always been a fan of psychadelic music. My parents raised me to be a hippie, in fact. They kept on smoking pot when I was conceived and still haven't stopped. I always used to blame the pot for making me born lethargic, but now, I found that it honestly made me appreciate music. Hell, my parents took me to see Pink Floyd when I was five, so that should tell you something about my musical upbringing.
Now we can be honest here, there hasn't been much respectable psychadelic music out since, well, before most of the board here was born. For the longest time, I thought the closest thing to new psychadelic music I could like was Neutral Milk Hotel with their psych-folk project and crazy instrumentation. Well, that was until I heard Ta Det Lugnt by Dungen.
Dungen, as some may know, is a Swedish band, so if you're looking for amazing lyrics, well, these might be lyrics that rival Bob Dylan, or George Michael, I can't tell you either way. But I can say Gustav Evstes' vocal melodies sound amazing!
The real enjoyable part of this album comes from the music. The guitars, piano, and pounding drums make this album a keeper. Tracks like "Panda", "Ta Det Lugnt" and "Lejonet & Kulan" sound like songs Pink Floyd or the Doors wish they could have made...but in English. "Festival" is a slow, acoustic piece that seriously makes you stop everything you're doing to just appreciate what is going around you. It falls into the category of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's "I See A Darkness" as an album that makes you pause the album so you don't miss anything going on.
The guitar work is seriously stunning on this album. The solo work by Evstes on this album would make Steve Howe (Yes) or Robert Fripp (King Crimson) smile. Sprawling, exact, and magnificent would be good words to describe the beauty of the guitar here. And the best part is, beyond a standard distortion pedal, there are no effects on the guitar to muddy it up, it's pure excellence that's worth listening to.
And on top of all this, Dungen puts on one of the best live shows I've ever been a part of. They're young and they love what they're doing, and they put so much energy into each second of the performance. The best par is, they try to speak English on stage and have no idea what they're saying, which makes them 24% more adorable.
Anyways, this is an amazing album that will make you appreicate the 60s and 70s a whole lot more if you listen to it. So just give it a whirl, it's still free to download.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3363tw